Stress Free Festive Menu Planning
Dealing with Overwhelm and Crafting a Festive Hamper Menu
Table of Contents
Hey, home bakers! 🍰
I know the festive season can make you feel like you’re spinning in circles—too many ideas, too little time. But don’t worry, it’s still NOT too late to get started, and you’re definitely not alone in feeling this way. Take a deep breath… 😌 You’re about to turn this chaotic feeling into a well-oiled festive hamper-making machine.
Whether you’re a seasoned baker or this is your first time thinking about hampers, this mini-course will take you from overwhelmed to overjoyed with easy-to-follow steps, strategic planning, and valuable insights to make this festive season not only manageable but profitable.
Feeling Overwhelmed? Let’s Fix That!
Let’s be real, creating a hamper can feel like a huge task, especially if you’ve never done it before. But here’s a secret: you don’t have to go all out from the start. If it’s your first time, focus on a small, easy-to-make menu, limit your promotions, and put most of your energy into getting new customers for winter sales & making repeat customers. This will allow you to get a handle on things without feeling like you’re drowning in work.
Key Tip: Don’t miss out on opportunities by doing nothing just because you’re overwhelmed. Starting small is STILL a start! 💪
Start Small & Keep It Simple
How to Decide What Goes Into Your Hamper
This is where things get exciting! 🎉 Your festive hampers aren’t just a random collection of baked goods; they’re an opportunity for amazing branding, marketing, and customer acquisition. A well-thought-out hamper can turn a first-time buyer into a repeat customer throughout the year + the person you’re gifting it to ALSO becomes your lifetime customer.
Here are some key factors to think about when deciding what goes into your festive hampers:
Who’s Buying?
Individuals: Your hampers need to be personalized, thoughtful, and feel like the perfect gift for their loved ones. They will usually be buying for their near and dear ones, so around 1 to 10 hampers at most. For them, it’s better to have a couple of options and NOT to offer too many tweaks.
Corporates: They’ll be buying in bulk, so you need to balance customization with manageability. You can offer tweaks here, but set boundaries—don’t promise the moon unless they’re paying for it! 🌙
How Are You Selling?
- Are you promoting hampers on Instagram or Facebook or some other social media channel? Are your followers local or live far away and might order from there?
- Planning to showcase them at local stalls? {This is honestly the BEST way to sell your hampers, you can get people to taste your items and make soooo many new customers who actually BUY.
- Maybe you’re collaborating with other small businesses for cross-promotion? These have so many benefits—you can honestly get the attention from their audience too plus your hampers can have their unique products like candles, handmade gifts, home decor, cards, etc to make your hamper wholesome and unique!
All these decisions will influence what’s in your hamper. You want items that will appeal to both audiences and offer something unique.
Budget Considerations:
Make sure you have different price points—people have varying budgets.
Consider offering three levels of hampers, ranging from affordable to luxury, so you appeal to as many people as possible.
For example, low-budget hampers of around Rs600, one mid-budget of around Rs1200, and one high-budget around Rs2000.
Pro Tip: For bulk orders, they might have their own budget in mind, say they want 50 hampers worth Rs1000/hamper each.
Avoid going overboard on customizations, or you’ll drive yourself crazy. Make minor tweaks to your existing range to fit their budget.
Make a catalogue and stick to it!
1. Affordable Hampers
For affordable hampers, opt for simpler packaging like paper or cake boxes, and dress them up with net, ribbons, and florals. It’s inexpensive but looks elegant. Even if the packaging is simple, the presentation can be stunning. Use affordable materials creatively to elevate the visual appeal.
2. Luxury Hampers
For premium hampers, you might want to go for hard MDF boxes or wooden crates. These exude quality and justify a higher price point. Remember, 15% of the hamper cost can be attributed to packaging, and that’s totally fine. High-end customers expect it, and the unboxing experience is part of the joy.
Remember—packaging and feel sell THIS time, but product quality is what turns them into a regular customer.
Yes, packaging increases cost, but that is the whole point of a hamper.
You need great branding because this is an amazing marketing and customer acquisition opportunity. That means you MUST have your stickers and cards and any personal notes in the hamper so the giftees can contact you to place repeat orders!
Imagine, they’ve JUST tasted your product and want to see where they can order more from, it must have those contact details!
Now, let’s talk packaging.
The packaging is a massive differentiator for hampers, especially during the festive season. You want your hampers to stand out and feel premium, even if you’re aiming for the affordable end of the market.
Packaging—It’s OK to Spend a Little Extra!
Crafting the Perfect Festive Menu
The next big question is: What goes in the hamper?
Your products should:
- Reflect the festive spirit
- Be easy to bake in bulk
- Be easy to pack and carry
- And last long enough to survive the gifting process.
Please remember though:
Add products that lead to year-round sales (like I won’t add lavash sticks because savouries aren’t my jam.)
Remember, these people would LOVE these products and want to get more of them, try to promote categories you already sell, so they can get them again even if in different flavours!
These are just some suggestions, ANY flavours can be made:
Tea Cakes
Tea Cakes in unique molds are an amazing festive hamper item. They last longer and don’t make a mess while packing. Think Pound Cakes in mini loaf moulds and Plum cakes for Xmas.
I teach some amazing bestselling tea cakes in my Art & Science of Cafe Style Cakes Masterclass. Click here to get it.
Brownies
I would choose fudgy brownies but not just your regular square brownie slices, you can have unique flavours AND pack and present them in different styles.
My Bestselling Brownies Bundle not only covers everything about making and selling brownies & blondies but ALSO has an amazing BONUS: 6 Styles Of Selling Brownies like brownie hampers, brownie tubs & more! Get it here!
Blondies
These can be such amazing mithai replacements and a very unique addition to your menu because not everyone sells them (and even if they do, you make them BEST, especially with the 6 styles of selling brownies)—Imagine Saffron Almond Bliss Blondies instead of regular Kaju Katli (at almost the same price for the customer—who wouldn’t want it?). Don’t want the whole Bestselling Brownies Bundle, get just the Art & Science of Blondies Masterclass HERE
Cookies
You can make a whole hamper of just assorted cookies or you can even add cookies as part of the whole hamper.
With cookies, you can not only customise the flavours but also the appearance and even texture from crispy to chewy to cakey to crumbly melt in mouth (more examples below). I actually teach them all in my Art & Science of Cookies Masterclass, get it here!
Hot Chocolate Mix
Luckily for us, most “gifting” festivals globally fall in winters, and one of the BEST items for hampers are Hot Chocolate Mixes. They can be stored for a long time, easy to ship & can be made in bulk (and no oven needed, wohoo!).
I cover everything about making and selling Hot Chocolate Mixes in this super affordable course here!
Love Note: More items to be added to your hampers as well as winter menu are my signature plum cakes (both alcoholic & non-alcoholic) as well as rum balls. I have a bundle of Plum Cakes Masterclass, Rum Balls Masterclass and Hot Chocolate Mix Masterclass here as my Winter Bestselling Bundle. (Covers everything from recipes to science to variations to branding to vendors lists to pricing) Get it here!
Product Category Suggestions:
- Use similar items but present them differently for each festival. For example, in case of cookies, my nankhatais for Diwali might turn into spiced Danish cookies for Christmas. Same item, different vibe! 🎄
- If you’re feeling extra festive, try introducing limited edition items that you know your customers already love. For example, my hot chocolate mix is always a hit—so I offer it in new packaging for hampers. It doesn’t add extra cost to me, but it feels special to my customers.
This is something we talked about in stalls course too—just customise the same items into limited editions, sell them at stalls so people can taste them and add them to your festive hamper so people who love it can order them.
Pro Tip: Stick to items that are easy to bake in bulk and have long shelf lives. Nothing worse than having a hamper go bad before it’s delivered!
One way to extend shelf life is making sure that you use hygienic, clean packaging, it shouldn’t easily mould so it should be airtight especially for cookies.
Customizing for Festivals:
Remember: Hampers are not just about selling products—they’re about creating an experience. The unboxing, the presentation, the quality—these all add value.
- You’ve got to factor in packaging (biggest change in cost compared to normal orders), time, effort, and customization.
- Another important factor to consider while pricing hampers is making sure to factor in the exclusivity. It’s not about “how much it costs me” vs “how much I can charge” but also about “how much is it worth?” It is very normal to get customers ordering higher-priced products because of their perceived value in things like exclusivity and customization.
- People are in the buying mode as well as these hampers are worth each penny!
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend checking out the Pricing 101 for Home Bakers course for in-depth strategies that also work on your mindset, calculation AND communicating these prices so people actually buy your products!
But here are a few quick pointers:
- Affordable Hampers: Keep packaging simple, and use cost-effective, bulk-friendly items like cookie dough brownies.
- Luxury Hampers: You can add premium ingredients (like saffron almond blondies with 24k gold!) and use luxurious packaging, but make sure your prices reflect the extra value you’re adding.
Pricing hampers can be tricky because it's not just about the cost of ingredients.
Pricing Your Festive Hampers
DO NOT ENGAGE IN PAN INDIA DELIVERIES IF YOU’VE NOT DONE THIS BEFORE- It’ll be too much of a hassle for you as a beginner as deliveries tend to go haywire during festive season. It’s better to go slow and master what you can at this stage to make sure you don’t et overwhelmed and customers also feel satisfied.
Avoid #1 key mistake
Here’s the bottom line: **If your customers come back to you saying “OMG, my relative LOVED your hamper and asked for your number,” you’ve succeeded.**
This is possible ONLY with the right products and the right strategies! That’s the goal—happy customers who turn into repeat clients. For really supercharging this season, go ahead and sign up in the resources I linked above, linking them again below:
- Art & Science of Cookies
- Art & Science of Cafe Style Cakes
- Bestselling Brownies
- Winter Bestselling Bundle
- Home Baker’s Guide To Stalls & Pop Ups
- Pricing 101 for Home Bakers
So, take a deep breath and get started! Your profitable festive season awaits. 💫
12 thoughts on “Stress Free Festive Hamper”
Okay! I totally in line with this now. I am now beginning to understand what exactly to put into hampers and I did not have a clue!
Thank You so much! This definitely has opened my eyes, I will work on it and make my hampers accordingly and will stick to basics coz this would be my first time!
Yayy! All the best Manasa, I am rooting for you! You already bake so well, I know you’ll make tons of *happy* customers this year!
Thank you so much for your valuable insights Shubhangi. I have purchased so many of the courses you have listed, and they have helped me immensely during exhibitions, bake sales, rakhi hampers and so much more.. looking forward to a great festive season with your ideas!! 🎉
This makes me so happy! I am soooo sure you’ll have your BEST EVER season! (Don’t forget to check the free festive season guide too!). Immense gratitude for having faith in how I teach <3
Thank you so much for this insightful post! Your tips on navigating the overwhelm of festive menu planning are spot on. I love how you break everything down into manageable steps, especially the idea of crafting a thoughtful hamper menu. It really helped me rethink my own planning process and made me feel more confident about tackling the holiday rush!
Remember, calmness and self care comes first! The previous festive season, I took on more than I could handle and let’s be honest, I got pretty sick. Doesn’t matter which pace you pick, there’s alwayssss something you can do even on a smaller scale!
So now after this detailed mini class we surely know what are we going to keep in hampers. I have all the courses you mentioned here and can really rock this season with ease. Thank you so much for helping.
I am so happy all those courses are helping you out so much! With your chocolates, these baked goods are going to sell soo well, especially now that you know how to price well!
This really is a comprehensive guide for making and selling hampers. Gives a clear picture of the entire process. I will use this to create Diwali hampers this year.
Yayy! I am so happy! Not just for Diwali, you can use this for Xmas, NY and even Valentine’s! I hope you’ll be making amazing hampers!!
Hey .thanks a ton for helping me sorting out things.. I hope now I can plan my hamper journey well..
You are so calm n lovely person who always help in hour of need.
Just one question if you could name a few suppliers who supply raw material for hampers packaging .
Aw!! I am so happy you feel calmer with the resources & support! That’s the whole point of my courses & the way I teach!
For suppliers, I will highly suggest finding ones in your city- Why?
1- Because it’s easier to re-stock if you run out (because you can’t arrange the same packaging from other places if you run out)
2- You will pay lesser for shipping, esp for hard corrugated/ MDP boxes
3- They will come faster/ less chances of breakage
Still, some all India shipping companies for hampers (for paper packaging) are- https://schmancy.in/ and https://www.upack.in/