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Fun
In Profile: Boxer Gifts
Is Our
Business Above: Thomas O’Brien, managing director of Boxer Gifts. From novelty condoms, willy care Left: Grow A Sloth is ringing up sales. Below left: Poo signs are the company’s best kits and poo signs to a Blame May seller. Below right: Office Excuses Decision Dice toy and word candles, Boxer Gifts has come a long way since founder novelty gifts, games, gadgets, Jamie O’Brien, a former gift agent, quirky housewares, pocket money started up a new company in the toys, gift books and occasion giftware targeted at gift and greeting card shops. As early ‘80s - subsequently joined by his Thomas says: “we are designers, innovators, wife Heather - vowing to revolutionise creators and manufacturers of unique, the gift trade and add some fun to interesting, original quality gift ideas which what he saw as a “boring” product mix make people laugh and which they will of china, glassware and collectables. definitely remember. Today, with their son Thomas Born and bred into the family business as a two year old, some 37 years ago, confidently at the helm, the company is continuing to go Thomas has been involved for as long as from strength to strength, focusing on fun, funky products he can remember, (“I still have a photo of that aim to give retailers that ‘something different’. me as a toddler helping to stick labels on PG&H paid a visit to the company’s Leeds HQ to products”), working full time in the school meet up with Boxer’s holidays, coming into the business 16 Chief of Fun. years ago, and gradually taking over the
f there’s one thing that really infuriates Boxer Gifts’ Thomas O’Brien more than any other, it’s ‘me too’ products. “From the off, our business was founded on being different, on being fun and quirky, and on being first to market with products and that’s still our philosophy today,” he states. And there you have it in a nutshell. The definition of a business that has had its rollercoaster moments, but one that has stayed true to its origins. Today, the business offers a wide variety of products, to include fun
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company operations. Today Boxer continues as a family business, with Thomas’ wife, cousin, uncle and nephew all working within the team. “In the early days, as my father’s ideas got wilder, the company grew, leading to us manufacturing 100% of our products in Bradford, Yorkshire,” Thomas recalls. With 60 production workers at its peak -often including a young Thomas - the company exported their novelty gifts around the world, as well as to forward Progressive Gifts & Home Worldwide
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