PromZ Vak 4 · 2026 · English edition

By Peter van Gestel

Inventory is killing. Unless you know what to do with it

Last February, BIGsmilegroep was named Christmas Supplier of the Year. A great opportunity to talk with Ivo Feyen – and, slightly more from the sidelines, Michel Stavenuiter – about nearly thirty years of Christmas hampers, choice gifts, and gifting. Success turns out not to lie solely in good products. At least as important are a distinctive assortment vision, virtually industrial logistics, and technology that stands not alongside, but right in the middle of the company.

Ivo Feyen did not start his career with the ambition to build a Christmas hamper company. He attended hotel school, interned at Disney’s Grand Floridian hotel – complete with salmon-pink trousers – and subsequently worked as a financial controller in Amsterdam, among other roles. Until his father came along.

The Christmas hamper division of his wholesale business was growing so fast that regular customers were starting to suffer. He asked if Ivo was interested in spinning off the business. “I did that. It cost me a relationship at the time, but it was the beginning of Feyenpak.”

That was the late nineties. Feyen started with a right-hand man and two employees. Initially, it was literally sweeping the hall together and then selling Christmas hampers. But the company grew rapidly. A showroom of approximately

1,500 square meters was established in Coevorden, surrounded by halls totalling about 10,000 square meters and eleven meters high.

The Christmas hamper trip

Those were different times. Customers from Maastricht got into their cars without complaint to visit a showroom in Coevorden. Not only to pick out a package, but also because such a day at the boss's expense was a nice outing. Feyenpak took it seriously, with complete experience spaces ranging from bathrooms to kitchens.

“Once we had a customer in the showroom, the chance of getting the order was about ninety percent.” But companies became more reluctant to organize business outings, regulations became stricter, and the number of showroom visits declined. The market shifted more towards preparing