Lisa Gleeson learned the art of gift wrapping from her mother. When Martha Stewart’s popularity began to grow, Lisa thought others might want to learn these skills. So she started teaching gift wrapping classes, and that’s when some of her students starting asking her to wrap their special occasion gifts. Soon after, Lisa’s gift wrapping business was born.
Lisa’s Gift Wrappers is a full-service wrapping store just outside Detroit in Royal Oak, Michigan. They do specialty wrapping for weddings, babies, birthdays, holidays and corporate events. Their slogan says it all: “When the presentation is as important as the gift.”
“I think that every small business has to find a “need” that isn’t being met,” explains Lisa. “Initially, I had to contend with large stores under-pricing or even giving away gift wrapping. So we had to start by educating our potential clients about what we had that was different – that you could pick your own ribbon, paper, tissue, etc. And we carried many more papers and ribbons than department and specialty stores.”
Lisa’s Gift Wrappers stocks a good mix of beautiful wrapping supplies since they wrap for every occasion and age. Nashville Wraps has been a great source for gift wrap, tissue paper, ribbon, boxes, shred, cello, and foil seals. Check out this super cute way they create raffia bows using our raffia ribbon on our polka dot wrap pictured above. They also like to mix our crinkle shred colors to create unique blends. Our Euro totes are used for their hospitality bags because they can hold four bottles of water, thanks to the sturdy cardboard insert bottoms. They like to feature Michigan-made products in them for out-of-town guests or VIPs.
Lisa has as many male customers as she does female, and is proud to say that once customers use her services, they are hooked and come back, especially at Christmas. She rarely gets returns, which is a retailer’s dream.
Lisa strongly believes that word-of-mouth advertising is the best. But since there are many effective ways to promote a business, she still does press releases, teaches classes, sends out direct mail, and runs print ads. She has multiple websites, a strong social media presence, and a new iPhone app, called WrapItApp, $1.99 in the iTunes store. This custom app provides an estimated amount of wrapping paper and ribbon needed to wrap based on box size.
In addition to gift wrapping, Lisa’s Gift Wrappers offers paper solutions for brides. A full-time graphic designer helps with invitations, ceremony programs, seating charts, and thank you cards.
Learn Lisa’s easy gift-wrapping and bow-making tips in the videos below. She has more creative ideas on her YouTube channel.
I love the look of your shop. How exciting and I wish you all the best with it. Do you run your workshops from there. i teach gift wrapping and have plenty of workshops and demonstrations but in England, everyone wants me near Christmas. i’d love to have work throughout the year if anyone has ideas??
Thanks Patty for your comments. We’ll try and do a video in the coming weeks on how to make that bow. That is a Lisa’s Gift Wrappers specialty for sure. All best to you and your business. We really appreciate your business and encouragement.
I love your story. We are just celebrating out one year birthday at It’z a WRAP and are getting ready to move in to a new Store Front :D. We started our Wrapping Shop out of the house and have now grown into a Shop. We’ll be moved in by Thanksgiving or before. Any advice you could offer would be greatly valuable to us.
I love the Raffia work you did on the Black Polka. We have that paper and i’d love to try that bow.