Gifts by type in Shanghai: from the teddy bear to the gift basket
Gifts by type in Shanghai open with handmade teddy bears, and the bear took its name from Theodore Roosevelt in November 1902. A Clifford Berryman cartoon in The Washington Post showed Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear cub, Morris Michtom put a «Teddy's bear» in his New York shop window, and Steiff in Germany released its own bear the same year, drawn by Richard Steiff. The section is organised by what the gift is rather than who it is for, so the sensible place to start is the type of item.
Gifts by type: baskets, food sets, soft toys and photo sessions
The section holds five subsections, and gift baskets is the largest of them, arranged by what sits inside rather than by size. Two more, food gift sets and food baskets, are two formats of the same idea: treats gathered either into a set or into a woven basket, and the exact contents are worth checking on the product page rather than guessed here.
Gifts for men forms its own subsection, and a photo session as a gift is sold as an experience rather than an object: what a session includes is listed on its own page too. The same grid carries the bouquets Vincent, Violet Dream and Juliana Bush Rose Bouquet, along with a designer cylinder that pairs flowers with the toy «Lola», and flowers and an object can both be chosen on the same page.
Soft toys with flowers: handmade bears, Basik cats and bunnies
Two kinds of bears open the grid: handmade ones, such as the Handmade Bear and the Handmade Bear with Heart, and a plush Large White Plush Bear. A Pink Rose Bear Plush Toy stands between the two.
Basik the cat comes in a bowtie, a hoodie or a sweatshirt, and the bunnies Mi and Mii wear plaid and sand-coloured dresses; a Handmade Bunny and a smaller Mini Handmade Bunny sit beside them, along with a plush unicorn and a handmade kitten figurine.
A bouquet fades, while a handmade or plush toy can stay on the shelf long after it does. A toy, balloons, sweets or a vase can be added in the order basket, and the pairing is picked at checkout rather than described on a separate page.
The French phrase for a gift basket, corbeille de mariage, comes from eighteenth-century France, where a groom filled a basket with gifts for his bride; later a casket took the basket's place, but the old word for it stayed. An engraving by Marillier from 1771 shows a bride unpacking such a basket.
Baskets are older than pottery: finds from the Fayum region date back ten to twelve thousand years, woven long before anyone fired clay. The willow used for basketwork has its own name, osier, and the shape has carried gifts ever since.
Food gift sets and food baskets follow the same idea in two shapes. The choice between them comes down to the occasion and to where the gift will be opened, not to the container, and what sits inside each one is listed on its own page.
A card with a message costs nothing, and it can be signed or left anonymous; the courier only ever sees the recipient's name and address, not who sent it. Without an address, a phone number is enough to arrange delivery, and the recipient is not called ahead of time unless the sender asks for that.
A few points cover most questions about gifts in Shanghai:
- Several addresses — one order basket can hold gifts bound for different addresses, and delivery is charged separately for each one.
- City centre — delivery there costs nothing.
- Timing — most orders are delivered the same day they are placed, and the exact window shows in the product card.
- Payment — Visa or Mastercard, and the total in the basket is final once it is paid.
Full delivery terms cover zones and the rest of the fine print.
A good starting point is the gift baskets subsection, the largest one in the grid; a toy can be added in the order basket, and anyone shopping for a man has a dedicated gifts for men page to browse.