1) Design and Innovation: there are lots of companies around who buy all their products off the shelf at the major Asian trade fairs, which is why the same new stuff turns up with so many of them at the same time. Although we too buy products in this way, our main focus is on our own designs; 40-50% of all our new lines are now designed in-house and are completely exclusive to us. We're not just the best source for these products, we're the only one.

2) Range: we're not quite a one-stop shop as we don't do greetings cards, but we do sell enough gifts of different kinds for men, women and kids (about 1,000 different lines) to form the core stock of a medium-sized shop or department.

3) Experience: we've been trading for nearly 30 years now, and we know the giftware market in good times and bad. We've been profitable in every one of those years through consistently providing innovative, well-made and good value products.

4) Ethical Trading: we're not members of any of the Fair Trade organisations which have sprung up in recent years, some of whom we think take an overly simplistic approach to the often complex issues involved in trading with Third World countries. We do however believe strongly in trading fairly, and this principle is at the core of our business. We don't exploit our suppliers - or our customers - nor do we deal with companies who we have any reason to believe treat their employees unfairly. And although we sell a number of products made from wood, these do not use endangered hardwood species.

5) Value for money: it's never been our aim to be the cheapest in town (though we often are) - with our own in-house designs there's no-one to compare our prices with anyway. We do aim to supply products that represent excellent value for money, allowing retailers to achieve a healthy profit margin while still pricing attractively for the general public. Our continued growth is, we think, an indication of our success in achieving this.

6) Greed: we'd quite like to make obscene amounts of money and retire to a small Caribbean island in the near future. You can help.

7) Stock Levels: this is one of the hardest things for any supplier of imported products to manage. We have to try to predict sales of more than 1,000 products at least four months before they happen, and then make sure the stock is there in time to fulfil those sales. We don't get it 100% right (we'd have retired long ago if we were that good) but we often hear it said that we do better than most. Perhaps one of the reasons is that we do actually try to predict sales and act accordingly - we don't wait to see what sells at trade fairs and only then order the stock.

8) Information: we do our best to keep customers informed about their orders and their account. If we're unable to supply an order in full, for example, we send with the invoice a balance order form listing all the goods we haven't been able to supply, together with an indication of if and when these are coming back into stock. This seems to us a fairly basic level of service, but apparently it's still fairly unusual in the giftware market! We want to further improve the amount and quality of information we give you, and we welcome your feedback - especially if you think we've failed to reach the standards you have a right to expect.

9) Easy to deal with: we try to be. We use fairly small pack sizes, for example, which means retailers can trial a new product at relatively low cost and risk. We will (subject to references) open a credit account from the first order. And we're told our catalogue is one of the most user-friendly around.

10) Nice: we are, honestly.