By Lisa Cowley
Associate Editor
COMMERCE, CA— Gibson’s exclusive agreement to distribute Pasabahce in the U.S. aims to drive new business opportunities for the company utilizing the latter’s expertise in glass manufacturing, said Sal Gabbay, CEO, Gibson.
Gibson had its beginnings as a glassware manufacturer, Gabbay noted, and has had nearly 60 years of experience with the segment.
“We are excited at the opportunity to bring a glassware focus back to Gibson in a strong way. Pasabahce is a category leader in over 140 countries worldwide,” Gabbay said. “Pasabahce brings tremendous expertise in manufacturing high-quality machine-made glass that offers great style and value.”
The Pasabahce glassware manufacturing capabilities allows the company to provide customized programs for retailers to meet their needs, whether it be everyday glassware or higher quality stemware, Gabbay noted.
“Pasabahce is well known and respected in the U.S. market, which presents many opportunities for growth. In turn, Gibson brings our well-established merchandising and distribution networks and ability to provide improved customer service. We have proven ability to market large-scale programs through a wide range of retail channels,” he said.
David Nicklin, Gibson’s vp/marketing and licensing, added, “We are excited to represent the Pasabahce brand in the U.S. and feel that there are tremendous opportunities to not only sell our strong in-line assortment but to also utilize high quality drinkware and housewares products across a wide variety of our owned and licensed brand programs. Pasabahce offers an unrivalled selection of products that can add value to many of our merchandise statements and truly drive significant incremental retail opportunities.”
In addition to Pasabahce’s full catalog of more than 22,000 items, the partnership allows for Gibson to use the brand as a glassware resource to offer glassware items across its own catalog, including in-house legacy brands such as Gibson Elite and licensed brands such as Weight Watchers. Gibson has also received interest from retail partners about adding Pasabahce-manufactured products to strengthen its private label glassware offerings, Nicklin added.
From an operational standpoint, Gabbay said, “To take full advantage of our partnership with Pasabahce, Gibson is adding a glassware expert to our glassware team that will help in strategies to increase sales. Gibson is successfully managing a soft launch of the program with existing Pasabahce inventory in the U.S. We will use this initial launch to better understand the product offering and market opportunities and fully integrate their programs into our sales and distribution network.”
The full launch of the Pasabahce U.S. collection will be at the International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago in March 2018.
