For people who have traveled far, souvenirs are essential memoirs for their most-treasured foreign experience. All conventional key chains, PVC and die-cast fridge magnets and cups, figures, can be granted a special layer of value by engraving scenes of landmarks for sale at the tourist spots. However, for Yeung’s Group Inc., these merchandises carry an even more unique meaning - they are all made out of original creation.

For Mr. Stanley Yeung, sales manager for Yeung’s, those souvenirs provide not only memorable value, but also very good “samples” for idea inspiration.

“When I travel abroad, I often try to collect ideas of well-made local souvenirs once I spotted them. Then I will bring them back to share with our designers to review and to work out some new and possibly more attractive styles if possible. However, since our product lines have expanded a lot in recent years, sometimes even I may not realise that I have brought back an product concept that my colleagues are already using for our products!” he grimed.

Established 40 years ago, Yeung’s has nowadays expanded into a group to manufacture a wide range of ceramic, metal, plastic, and polyresin items. Together, they turn out souvenirs and promotional gifts of all shapes and kinds: mugs, key-rings, fridge magnets, water balls, ashtrays, bottle openers, figures, ornaments, building replicas, decorative plaques...etc. “We work on almost all kinds of gifts and souvenirs you will see at tourist attractions around the world,” Stanley Yeung remarked.

When asked about how to conceptualise a souvenir, Stanley Yeung said, “The first and foremost condition for a marketable souvenir is that it must be small and portable, and matching the mood of the landmark. You are not going to buy a replicated and minimised Eiffel Tower of Paris in a Hong Kong store. But you will be most likely willing to pay for the same item at an official souvenir shop just underneath the real thing. And, the item must be small in size so that you will not hesitate and buy it by impulse. I, for sure, will not get a four- feet-tall statue and take it along while I am traveling.”
Other than being portable, Stanley Yeung continued to point out that new elements and novel ideas are key to souvenir business. He works out various new souvenir items from merchandises outside of souvenir field, rather than just simply copying from an existing souvenir item. He said, “It is meaningless if we don’t twist out new ideas, as we will eventually face escalating competition once the products are launched. Our return from these items is always diminishing with time. We always need to keep on launching new items. ”

“To provide the best value-for-money product to our customers, we will not just stick to our existing lines, but continuously work out new ideas. For example, we have successfully adapted the format of the Russian folk wooden doll sets, in which one doll carries another doll, to the making of figures of NBA basketball players or famous celebrities in plastic material. As an add-on function, the set actually is a coin bank, too. We have also pioneered the similar innovative concept for the major sport leagues in the U.S. on photo frames,” he added.

In addition to own production, Stanley Yeung revealed that the company, as buying office to retail chains and international firms, also source third-party products to satisfy customers’ special demands. He explained, “For some less important but meaningful gift items, we do not produce ourselves such as raincoats, bags, pens, paper products...etc.. It doesn’t make sense for us to launch another production line dedicated exclusively for them. We would be better off acting as buying agent for clients on these product categories.”

“Our sourcing covers most provinces of the mainland China. We will work with our mainland associates, backed by our independent quality control teams based in Shenzhen office, to customise the best value-for-money products for our customers.”

Apart from tourist market, Yeung’s Group has also successfully cultivated the new markets for mass media, sports, great corporations, government departments and even political groups. Stanley Yeung said, “Every organization, no matter in what size and what their nature of business is, need promotional items for their events. In 2004, we had even worked on orders from the Democratic Party of the US to produce presidential candidate look-a-like figures.”

As of the end of 2005, Yeung’s Group has its market distributed in the US (40%), Europe (30%), and the rest of the world (30%). Although the product categories available similar in the US and Europe, Stanley Yeung said that he has to make product amendments in some small areas. “American customers may require lavish decoration and packing on some small items, while European customers may not, or vice versa. Take the case of a key chain as an example; our European customers may require a leather-back on the metal shield and large-size packing, while our American customers prefer more simple design and packaging. These are the small things that we can’t afford to miss,” he explained.

Dealing with so many varied items at a time, Yeung’s takes a swift but cautious approach in rolling out new product designs. Stanley Yeung added that the product replacement cycle in the souvenir industry is getting shorter and shorter that they have to come up with five to eight new products monthly in average.

He elaborated, “Once certain items are rendered obsolete, which happen very fast as usual, the retailers at the end of the business chain will try to press down on our price. These items will be no longer profitable to us. We must have new designs ready at all times to upkeep the overall profitability return on our operation.”

Even with constantly updating website and catalogues, Stanley Yeung admits that Yeung’s is also facing hard challenges from economic downturns and industrial changes. At the same time, the company has to take heed of drastic changes in the market trend.

“Due to our expanding market network, our production high season now covers almost two - thirds of the calendar year. We are also trying to design more gift sets in collection, as more and more customers like the idea of putting several items into a whole set of collection,” said Mr. Yeung.

To further diversify its product lines,
Yeung’s is stepping up effort for the penetration of gift collection market and the expansion of license manufacturing.

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