The Top Players in the Personalized College Gift Market

When you search Google for personalized college gifts, currently you'll see these websites in the top 5:

1. Gifts.com
2. PersonalHeadlines.com
3. Bizchair.com
4. IvyCoveredHalls.com
5. Shop.com

Even though Ivy Covered Halls does not rank in the top 3, we are proud to dominate this market because our rivals are immediately eliminated from the competition upon first impression. The staff at Ivy Covered Halls feels smug when thinking about the personality that we have endowed upon our online gift shop.

The name "Ivy Covered Halls" stands for the elegant collegiate atmosphere which we represent. We are different because our items are carefully crafted in the USA with the highest quality materials. Also, upon first glance, our prices may seem on the expensive side to an uninitiated customer, but we are honest with our prices unlike our competitor Bizchair.com, who marks up their items with misleading "original prices" and then supposedly put their items on sale, while our prices are actually lower.

If you need more evidence, perform the search mentioned above for personalized college gifts and look at the results for yourself. Gifts.com has a nice store with a large inventory, yet their personalized gifts are lacking the ornateness of a memorable gift for a graduating soon-to-be professional. Would your grad be able to display a "Rockin' & Loungin' Chairs for Gamers" or a "Your Name on a Real MLB Scoreboard" in his or her posh office? That's the distinction between Ivy Covered Halls and the rest of the college gift market.

As for PersonalHeadlines.com, BizChair.com and Shop.com, their item offering is so wide that they cannot help but be generic. They are as non-exclusive as eBay or Shopping.com and their one-template-fits-all Google ads. On the other hand, our store stands at the peak of a niche market for personalized college gifts for the serious graduates of prestigious colleges.

Now That's a Great Idea!

A few weeks ago, a customer came to our "bricks and mortar" store, Fellin's Jewelers, looking for a really unique and meaningful "thank you" gift. Our customer had a dilemma: he had been "deputized" by the community service organization for which he serves as vice president to select something special for an executive who has everything (of course!) and who had been a very generous contributor and fund raiser. Not only did he have to choose the right thing for the recipient, his choice had to please the entire membership, since the gift represented all of them. Now that's shopping pressure! After some conversation, we determined that the recipient was a Penn State alumnus and an enthusiastic Penn State sports fan. We knew right away that Ivy Covered Halls' series of university themed gifts was the answer. Our customer chose the large Colorprint Desk Box, featuring Penn State University's "Old Main," the most historic building at the main campus in University Park. He wisely decided to personalize the gift with the recipient's name. Well, to make a long story short, it was a great hit! Everyone agreed that it was a fitting tribute to their honored guest and everyone was happy. Happiness ... now that's a great idea!

Personalized Mirrors Are On Fire

Ivy Covered Halls is a relatively new project of ours (Fellin's Jewelers), and we are proud to say that we are ranking extremely well in the search engine results. As of today, for the search term personalized college gifts, we are ranked #1 in MSN and #4 in Google. How did we achieve these numbers? It was through hard work and patience in our search engine marketing campaign and following the basic rules of search engine optimization.

For another update, our most popular item so far this week has been our selection of personalized mirrors. These mirrors vary from 16" to 25" long, and they feature either gold or silver frames with a personalized print of the grad's university at the head of the mirror. Our mirrors are our only items in our inventory that are not considered within the family of personalized desk accessories, but it blends in just as well as they do in setting of the executive office or the college dorm room.

Personalized Graduation Gifts

There really aren't that many online stores that offer personalized graduation gifts. Sure, there are huge brands like Things Remembered that offer personalized gifts, but they do not target the academic market in particular like we do at Ivy Covered Halls. Because we have a very targeted niche for graduation gifts, we are able to specialize and focus all our attention on delivering high quality goods that are custom made by your specifications.

Through our current branding campaigns and other marketing efforts, we plan on establishing Ivy Covered Halls as the most reliable and honestly priced place online to get your personalized graduation gifts.

Did you check out our selection? Our most popular item for high school and college graduations are our beautiful personalized desk boxes. Not only can you customize this item with the graduate's name, school year and school name, but a desk box actually serves a practical purpose. He or she will remember your gift for endless years to come as it sits on his executive desk, holding a collection of personal keepsakes.

Feeling Good!

Have you ever noticed how happy people are to receive a personalized gift? It shows that you took the time to think about your gift and to plan ahead. Anyone can stop by the mall and "pick up something quick" ... but to really consider, "Is this special? Is it unique and meaningful?" takes a little more effort. And when the gift includes the recipient's name, its literally meant just for them! Plus, its kind of a thrill to see your name so proudly displayed ... it just makes you feel good. Now that's something we all like to feel!

Welcome to Ivy Covered Halls

Thank you for visiting our blog at Ivy Covered Halls. Ivy Covered Halls was founded as an off-line gift store in 1985 in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and has been providing beautiful personalized college gifts for the northeastern United States. Our store decided to go online in 2007 to serve even more customers with our great products. Through this blog, we hope to connect with our customers and provide a personal insight into what we sell best: college gifts.