What goes into an ₹850 corporate box
A plain line-by-line costing of our kraft corporate box, and where the price moves when you change it.
Inside a packing day before Deepavali
Four hundred hampers, six people and a lot of marigolds: one day in our packing room.
The week before Deepavali, our day starts at 6.30 am, when the first sweet boxes arrive from Chickpet. They are counted, checked for weight and dated before anything else happens.
By 8 am the long table is set up as a line. Shalini lays out the trays and boxes, Imran fills the dry fruit, Lakshmi adds sweets and diyas, and two people tie ribbons. Marigolds go in last, because they wilt by evening. Every finished box is photographed against its order number, which is how we answer the question “did my box go?” in a few seconds.
Notes are written at a separate desk through the day. On our busiest day last year we wrote 412 of them, in four languages. We read each one back before it goes in the envelope.
The first riders leave at 11 am. The last city deliveries go out at 4 pm, and outstation boxes are handed to the courier at 6. Then we sweep up the ribbon and set the table for the next morning.
