A flight on a fighter plane, a master class on cooking stroganina, a descent from a mountain in a large inflated balloon - during a crisis, such entertainment turned out to be easier to sell not to a corporate client, as before, but to a private client. For this purpose, entertainment should be packed in boxes.

Packaged service

Shelves, on the shelves there are boxes. Boring? Not at all. Each one has an adventure inside. To participate, just activate the code by erasing the protective layer from the plastic card. For example, in the Red Cube, gift boxes from the Present Show company with a zorbing certificate sell well. This, who doesn't know, is when you are placed in an inflatable sphere and pushed down a mountain. Do you want the gift to be a little more useful? Contact your competitors, they are not asleep. You can buy a billiards master class with the current world champion from EVO Impressions or the Stroganina Show event - the product is completely fresh: the Expedition company entered the market with its boxed “gifts of fate” in June.

According to the marketing company Restco Holding, the gift market in Russia has a turnover of more than $10 billion. When choosing New Year's gifts, 49% of consumers choose souvenirs. Things useful in the household, clothing, and jewelry are also noticeably popular. And only 3% of respondents would approach the choice of gifts more creatively. Previously, apparently, someone from the last group could go to negotiate, say, for his friend to ride a motor hang glider. Now that several companies offer “adventures in boxes,” it’s much easier to make such a gift: take it and go to the checkout.

According to Viktor Larionov, managing partner of MOST Marketing, organized adventures may well displace gifts from the middle and VIP segments on the shelves - thanks to the marketing concept that packages adventures in boxes. “A service, unlike a product, is inseparable from the seller,” explains Larionov. “In this regard, the seller of the service, in fact, must sell himself, his practical skills and abilities to the client. The demand for services during a crisis falls more than the demand for goods.” The format of the boxed solution itself, according to Larionov, came from computer software manufacturers.

The focus on private consumers who give each other gifts, despite the crisis, turned out to be unexpectedly productive against the backdrop of the decline of the event industry. In 2007, according to Event Consulting Rus, its turnover was $1 billion. But during the crisis, the demand for specialized services fell, according to various estimates, by 50-70%. “Our business is dominated by serving corporate clients,” says Alexander Gizi, financial director of the Klyukva event agency. “And almost all companies have reduced spending on entertainment.”

Impression technology

Our entrepreneurs spotted an elegant solution - to put an adventure in a gift box - in London. “In 1999, my friends and I saw excursion certificates in a regular gift shop,” recalls Alina Yankovskaya, managing partner of the Present Show company, which became the pioneer of a new segment of the gift market in Russia. “We came up with the idea of selling adventure certificates with unique codes in special gift boxes,” she says.

Alina Yankovskaya believes that the volume of the impression gift market in Russia is several tens of millions of dollars a year, and may soon reach several hundred million. “Last year, more than 100 thousand people took part in our adventures,” says Yankovskaya. Present Show's main competitor, EVO Impressions, has more modest estimates. “I don’t think that the adventure gift market in Russia exceeds $20 million a year. This is less than 1% of the gift market as a whole,” says Mikhail Lapidus, CEO of EVO Impressions. The adventures his company sells involve 500-600 people every week, that is, 25-30 thousand a year, not counting corporate clients, says the CEO.

One way or another, the demand for adventure has room to grow. “We started selling Present Show gift boxes in our stores in February of this year,” says Irina Kirilyuk, deputy director of the retail sales department of the Red Cube company. “Sales growth is good - 10-15% per month, although this is not the holiday season.” Kirilyuk is not afraid that “adventures in boxes” will begin to displace traditional souvenirs from the shelves. “A new product rather helps to expand the range and attract new customers,” she says.

Present Show, EVO Impressions and Expedition, which has just entered the boxed market, are the only companies in Russia that sell “adventures in boxes” through their own retail chains. Present Show has three points, EVO has five. "Expedition" began selling "gifts of fate" in 33 Moscow stores and through its online store (there are more than 200 "Expedition" stores in total - not only in Russia, 90% of them are open as franchises). "Present Show" boxes, however, are also sold in the "Red Cube" network. At EVO, only 15-20% of sales come from the Internet, the rest is mainly from retail and the corporate sector. “We install our racks in other networks - Goodwin, Purple Legion, Mood in St. Petersburg,” says Lapidus. “We can easily open our assortment on 20 square meters.”

Present Show entered the market with 20 adventures, now there are already more than 450 of them. EVO has about 120 of them so far. The companies have fifty people on staff. "The recipient of the gift certificate calls the call center, where we employ four people, and books the service. After activation, we contact the partner and agree on the date and time of the adventure. Then, with the client, we provide all the details of the adventure: how to get to the place, what to take with you,” says Alina Yankovskaya

Summer is high season for adventure, but New Year's is the highest season for sales. “We have several thousand sales throughout the year. And on New Year’s Eve there can be several tens of thousands,” says Yankovskaya. According to Mikhail Lapidus, approximately a quarter of recipients of gift certificates do not activate them. This, of course, benefits companies: the money is received, there is no need to spend money on organizing the program, and few return the donated boxes.

Present Show, EVO Impressions, as well as companies like “Give Positive!”, Smile, which work exclusively via the Internet, use a similar scheme for organizing events. The services themselves are provided by company partners - sports clubs, restaurants, beauty salons, etc. “As a rule, we find partners ourselves, but sometimes they find us,” says Mikhail Lapidus. “We test their services, then contact management. Approximately ten partners gave us a 40% discount." Such a discount ensures the sale of services without a markup: the gift company simply sells them at the same prices as the “manufacturer”, and keeps the discount amount for itself.

“We give our partners a good flow of clients,” explains Lapidus. “There are services for which one of the partners has 20 activations a day thanks to us. Such demand is, for example, massage in SPA salons, karting. For some partners we provide 30 -40% capacity during the season. We deliberately do not expand our business beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg. If there is only one diving center in the entire city, it will dictate its own terms for discounts, offering, for example, 10%. Then we will have to make a large markup. , and this means that the idea will quickly die out."

Alina Yankovskaya recalls that until recently in the capital, each potential client had to make a product presentation. But the market has matured, the consumer has become bolder, and now her company sells more than 50% of its adventures through retail. The most popular gifts, according to Yankovskaya, are the above-mentioned zorbing (1,590 rubles for 30 minutes), a flight on a Yak (14 thousand rubles), a wind tunnel (1,790 rubles), all kinds of romantic dates (a date in a hot air balloon costs, for example, 30 thousand rubles). In the warm season, Lapidus notes, everything related to water and flying is popular: diving lessons (RUB 1,990 for EVO), paragliders (RUB 2,590), parachutes (RUB 7,400).

The validity of a gift certificate from the date of purchase is one year for Present Show, and six months for EVO. “The prices that we negotiate with our partners have a validity period,” explains Lapidus. “A lot can change in a year. Those who set a period of more than six months for a certificate are most likely including risks in the cost of the gift.”

Before the crisis, Present Show's average purchase amount was 7-8 thousand rubles. versus 5.5 thousand rubles. at EVO Impressions. Now the figures are equal. “We quickly responded to the crisis - we began to invent inexpensive gifts. For example, now we have a “Cheer up!” gift for 990 rubles. The average bill has fallen, but sales volumes have increased. Now the average price of a gift is about 3.8 thousand rubles. in Moscow and approximately 2.8 thousand in St. Petersburg,” says Mikhail Lapidus. In Present Show, the average price dropped to 2-3 thousand rubles. “Of course, we feel the crisis - primarily in working with corporate clients. The average bill is smaller, but unit sales have increased tenfold compared to last year. This is because we work at the intersection of the markets for gifts, entertainment and tourism services. And We can attract clients from three markets."

The average client, according to Alina Yankovskaya, is a person from 25 to 40 years old, with an above-average income, and an active lifestyle. However, says Mikhail Lapidus, a client buying a massage certificate and a client buying a parachute jump are completely different people. For this reason, Yankovskaya’s company has several product brands. For example, “Drive Card” is for lovers of active leisure. And "Aladdin's Card" is addressed to those who prefer a relaxing holiday.

Your resources

"Expedition" is a diversified enterprise: production and distribution of goods under its own brand, company stores, travel organization, restaurants... One of the main competitive advantages of "Expedition" when entering the adjacent segment of "boxed adventures" is a recognizable brand and its own resources for the organization events. “We are doing a new business based on what we have,” says Anastasia Sorokina, head of the Gift of Fate project. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to surprise people, but new sensations are one of the main human needs, and we can satisfy it.”

“Expedition is our long-time partner in organizing adventures,” says Alina Yankovskaya. “We don’t perceive them as competitors, because they sell certificates only for their own services. Expedition is more tailored to the hiking theme. They have their own resources: rafts, tents, restaurants. It is unlikely that they will decide to sell the services of someone else."

“We will never sell a skydive or swimming with a dolphin if it doesn’t fit with our brand,” says Anastasia Sorokina. Now "Expedition" has its own restaurant and bathhouse complexes, a "Drive Cafe", a fleet of equipment, sailing catamarans, and ATVs. There is also a hotel on the raft "Million Stars" - a source of special pride for the head of the Expedition, Alexander Kravtsov. “Five years ago, we built rafts for our own entertainment. Then we realized that it is quite possible to make a hotel out of a raft. This hotel can be assembled anywhere and floated on any non-navigable river, and there are many such rivers in Russia,” he says.

Now one night on such a raft costs almost 10 thousand rubles. and is also sold in a box. When asked when Expedition expects to recoup its investment in Gift of Fate, Kravtsov replies that everything paid off long before the launch of the project - in particular, through servicing corporate clients.

According to Anastasia Sorokina, the launch of the “boxes” in June was successful: the sales plan was exceeded by 170%. Now the list of “gifts of fate” is not very large - about 40 “impressions”, but by the beginning of the New Year period there will be about 150. “We want the share of this project in the total turnover of the company in a year to be 30%, so we will invest in expanding the list” impressions" - new gifts will appear every week," says Sorokina.

Alexander Kravtsov does not like to talk about the company’s income; he only notes that if a division’s profit is less than $100 thousand per year per employee, then it means it is not working well. And the “Gift of Fate” project is no exception.

“Having our own bases and resources for carrying out adventures increases revenue,” notes Mikhail Lapidus from EVO. “In a year and a half, we will be able to create our own partners and immediately provide them with a full load. We will make bases, and this will be a business completely tailored to our interests, which is what we sometimes lack in existing partners.” Present Show has similar plans.

Adventure gifts, market players hope, will become a fashion and then a habit. This, we note, is quite possible: the consumer has begun to get tired of funny souvenirs that lift the mood only when presented, and then, meaningless and unnecessary, gather dust in an unknown place. In any case, it is difficult to come up with a surprise bigger and more pleasant than a box containing exciting action.

ANASTASIA KARIMOVA

Magazine "Kommersant Money" No. 27 dated July 13, 2009, p. 25

Authors:

Anastasia Karimova

Themes:

Tourist market

Surprise according to the price list