Last Thursday, 8th May, the whole e-commerce team from Temptation Gifts Ltd descended, suited and booted, upon the Savoy Hotel for the gift industry’s lavish annual awards ceremony – and came away with the accolade of Best Online Gift Retailer for the fourth consecutive year!

Hosted by Progressive Gifts and Home magazine, “The Greats”, as this event is known, is now in its 12th year of celebrating the best gift retailers in the UK. “With each passing year, the competition at The Greats gets tougher, so to win our fifth Online Retailer award was as surprising and as exhilarating as winning our first in 2009”, said Temptation Gifts co-founder Mike Adams. “This is a brilliant day for Temptation and in particular for our web teams, but overall a brilliant day for our entire industry, with the bar being pushed higher and higher in all categories."

This is an unrivalled achievement for the whole team. From the web marketing staff who painstakingly ensure that over 10,000 products are well photographed and accurately described on the websites, to the fulfilment team who tirelessly pick, pack, and then promptly dispatch the orders all over the world.

"Our thanks go, of course, to all of our loyal customers – be they local or from further afield. With over 30 years’ experience selling gifts through our stores in and around the Home Counties we have developed a love for great products from innovative brands, and a firm old-fashioned dedication to customer service which we strive to replicate online at TemptationGifts.com and CampusGifts.co.uk."

On Thursday 8th May 2013, at the gift industry's annual awards ceremony at the prestigious Savoy Hotel in London, Temptation Gifts were delighted to be named the Best Online Retailer of Gifts in the UK... for the third consecutive year!

"The Greats" awards, organised and presented by industry magazine Progressive Gifts and Home, recognise excellence in the gift industry, and Temptation are proud to be past winners of the awards for Best Independent Gift Retailer, Best Online Gift Retailer, and overall Best Gift Retailer in the UK.

This year our e-commerce department was thrilled to be named *Best Online and/or Mail Order Retailer of Gifts* for the third consecutive year. This is an unparalleled achievement and one that we are extremely proud of, especially given the fierce competition from the likes of notonthehighstreet.com. This would not have been possible without a large team of people, working together as a team, from the people who wrap and pack our packages to those that design the website. Winning the award three years running is a tremendous show of consistency, and proof that we continue to offer the best possible gift shopping experience - and will strive to do so throughout the years to come.

Temptation was also nominated for the Best Specialist Multiple Gift Retailer, and while we were pipped to the post for this award, it was still a huge success to be short-listed as a finalist. We faced tough competition from national retailers, with the likes of John Lewis and Selfridges nominated for awards. Despite not getting the win this year, it acts as a great incentive for any independent businesses, proving that it is possible to compete with the biggest and the best.

A final thank you, though, must go to you, our customers. Some of you may have only used us once or twice; many of you shop with us every month. Whatever your shopping habits, we would literally not be able to keep going if it wasn't for your continued interest, enthusiasm, and kind-hearted nature that makes you want to buy someone a gift in the first place! So thank you for believing in Temptation Gifts. We hope you continue to enjoy shopping with us as much as we enjoy doing what we do.

On Thursday 17th May 2012, at the gift industry's annual awards ceremony in London, Temptation Gifts were thrilled and tremendously proud to discover we had won not one but two prestigious national awards.

"The Greats" awards, organised and presented by industry magazine Progressive Gifts and Home, recognising excellence in the gift industry and Temptation are proud to be past winners of the awards for Best Independent Gift Retailer, Best Online Gift Retailer, and overall Best Gift Retailer in the UK.

This year our e-commerce department was thrilled to be named *Best Online and/or Mail Order Retailer of Gifts* for the third time in four years. We believe this is a truly remarkable achievement. We're extraordinarily proud of our team, and humbled to have been rewarded so consistently for all our efforts to create the best possible online gift shopping experience.

But the night's excitement didn't end there, since as a category winner Temptation was then eligible to win the overall "Greatest of the Greats" award: the *Best Gift Retailer in the UK*… AND WE WON!!

This makes us the first and only business to have won this ultimate accolade twice, having also been thrilled to win in 2008. So while we congratulate our incredibly hardworking team who are all equally responsible for winning this title, we would of course like to thank all of you, our customers. Because as thrilling and humbling as it is to have received the commendation and congratulation of our peers in the industry; your recognition and praise is what we really strive for. So thank you for your continued support, your loyal custom and your kind words; and thank you for helping us build our little family business from one small shop in Berkhamsted, into a fast-growing award-winning chain which has once again been recognised as the Best Gift Retailer in the UK!

Extraordinary pressures of work in January sadly prevented us from finding the time to put together a submission for the 2010 awards of which we could be suitably proud. But in 2011 Temptation Gifts Ltd. put forward several arms of the business as prospective nominees for the "Greats" gift retail awards orchestrated by Progressive Gifts and Home.

We were pleased to find that our online marketing team won the UK Online Gift retailer of the year the Greats awards.

Last night at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, the gift industry hosted its seventh annual awards night, sponsored and organised by leading trade magazine Progressive Gifts. The Temptation Gifts online department, comprising of temptationgifts.com and our sister site, campusgifts.co.uk, scooped the prize for best online and/or mail order gift retailer against fierce competition from some major national brands like JD Williams.

In a dramatic upset for shortlisted household names like John Lewis and Clinton's Cards, the biggest award of the evening, for "UK Gift Retailer of the Year 2008", went to well-loved local gift chain Temptation Gifts Ltd, of Amersham, Beaconsfield and Berkhamsted. Temptation also picked up the award for "Best New Gift Shop" for their reopened Berkhamsted store, and only just missed out on "Best Gift Website" as well.

Temptation Gifts Ltd is owned and run by married couple Mike and Sheena Adams. The business began in March 1983 with one little high street shop in Berkhamsted, Herts. Since then Mike and Sheena have worked tirelessly to develop the company, in the process building up a core team of enthusiastic staff and a loyal following of customers from all across the Home Counties. Twenty-five years on, the company enjoys a turnover in the millions, generated by 3 large stores and 2 websites, and fuelled by its separate central warehouse. Not content to rest on their laurels however, Temptation Gifts have ambitious expansion plans, to double in size again over the next five years.

Currently celebrating the company's 25th year in business, Temptation Gifts' co-owner and finance director Sheena Adams enthused: "The hard work of everyone in the team is what has earned us this award and it's a pleasure to work with such a dedicated group of people. I'm so proud of them. But we all know that really it's our customers we have to thank for this- for their support, their advice and their loyalty over a quarter of a century."

Her husband Mike added: "We have never stopped working on getting the big things right, for our customers. Great stock, great prices, great service. I'm absolutely thrilled that's been recognised with this award."

The company website, TemptationGifts.com, only just missed out on a huge award of its own, as one of five finalists for the "Best Gift Website" award. The Adams' son Joel, 24, joined the business recently to expand the online operation and said: "Just getting the nomination is incredible. This is saying that temptationgifts.com is one of very best places to buy gifts online. I've always thought that of course but it's great that it's official now!"

Local MP and Tory front-bencher Cheryl Gillan was one of many local dignitaries to pile on the praise. "Many congratulations to Temptation Gifts on winning the award of UK Gift Retailer of the Year. It's a great achievement that a local enterprise should have won through in competition with national chains. Now that Temptation Gifts are expanding their online shopping service, many more people will be able to share the experience which so many local shoppers already enjoy".

We're the "Best Gift Website" - it's official!

LOCAL community leaders joined Amersham, Beaconsfield and Berkhamsted shoppers in congratulating the high-street side of the Temptation Gifts family on being named Independent Gift Retailer of the Year, South/South-East, against stiff competition in a region which covers more than a dozen counties.