A bustling side hustle – how gift giving became a post-pandemic industry

This married couple never thought their side hustle would balloon into the size it is today.

A variety of products the gift-giving company sells. Picture: Good Day People

Starting a business is a hard enough feat as it is – but few can say they started up a multi-million dollar company in the middle of a pandemic.

Married couple Jacob and Sarah-Jane Leung run the gift hamper service Good Day People – and since the company’s beginnings as a side hustle in 2020, they’ve found huge success in the market of giving gifts.

“So we started it because we both had jobs at the time, and we were very bored during the first lockdown,” said Mr Leung. “And we needed to send a gift to a male friend of ours, in his late 20s.”

“We couldn’t find anything that was young and fresh,” said Ms Leung. “There were nice gift hamper companies out there, but they’re really feminine. We couldn’t find something gender neutral.”

The founders of Good Day People, Jacob and Sarah-Jane Leung. Picture: Good Day People

The couple, now in their early 30s, started working out of a cupboard in their rental, investing in the business out of their savings.

“We were newly engaged, and because we couldn’t really get married and plan a wedding, we just started the business,” Mr Leung said.

“We said, if we sold one a day, How amazing would that be? And I think in the first year we sold over 10,000. So it was a bit hectic.”

Since then, the business has moved several times, now operating out of a warehouse in Sydney’s Brookvale.

What started as a team of two has now bloomed into a larger business, with a larger staff.

The business has now sold more than 43,000 gifts since it began, with several high profile clients such as A-list celebrities and large media networks.

Much of their company’s design is made in-house by the couple, who want to appeal to audiences in their 20s to 40s. Picture: Good Day People

“Our first corporate order that we did – I think it was 700 to 800 gifts,” Ms Leung said. “There was some miscommunication with our packaging supplier, and so packaging arrived and all the bases were not fixed to the canisters – so the bases fell apart.

“So then we figured, okay, it’s either we have to delay this for a couple of weeks, which was not an option, or we start gluing the bases.”

Over the next few days, the two of them sat in their house, gluing the bases back to the canisters, recruiting friends who had the time to help.

“Our technique in the gluing probably took a couple of goes,” Mr Leung said. “There might be some munted ones.”

The company has a variety of Christmas and celebration-themed gift hampers for the holiday season. Their most popular is called the ‘Jolly Holly’. Picture: Good Day People

Mr Leung has not left his full-time job, and Ms Leung still freelances – to them, in some ways it still is “a little bit of a side hustle”, made possible with the help of their team.

“While we’re growing, it’s just nice to have the safety of a regular income,” Mr Leung said.

Good Day People got so big so fast, that some of the boutique businesses they had paired with “broke up” with them due to the sheer quantity of orders they were making.

Others have enjoyed seeing the company grow. “They’d [say], ‘Your first order with us was 10, and now you’re ordering 1000.’ Mr Leung said.

“They’re so stoked to be on the journey with us.”

Originally published as A bustling side hustle – how gift giving became a post-pandemic industry