Chocolates à la Carte

Chocolate Gifts Are A Big Hit At Louis Vuitton

Ron Michaels, general manger of the Louis Vuitton store in Beverly Hills, knows fine luggage and how to please his discriminating customers from arround the world. Michaels, after all, grew up in Beverly Hills and works in his family luggage bussiness which sold Louis Vuitton to many famous Hollywood stars like Groucho Marx and Fred Astaire.

For several years it has been the store's tradition to give a gift to valued customers as a token of appreciation. "We feel it adds to the experience of shoppin at Louis Vuitton," says Michaels.

Gift with Purchase Program

Michaels came up with the idea of featuring chocolate gifts when his mother gave him a chocolate wedding invitation that she had received in the mail, produced by Chocolates à la Carte. At the time, Louis Vuitton, the premiere luggage and handbag company founded in 1854 in france, was a major sponsor of the America's Cup "Challenger" sailing races taking place in San Diego.

He had Chocolates à la Carte create a white chocolate disc with the colorful America's Cup logo to give out as gifts to customers and they were a big hit. In the following years, he has had Chocolates à la Carte produce everything from chocolate Louis Vuitton logo letters with ediblee gold lettering to dark chocolate rectangular boxes textured to look like leather with the famous Louis Vuitton monogram.

"I always try to do something new," Michaels says. " We now give out beautiful personalized chocolate boxes filled with fine French truffles and packaged in an elegant white box with the Louis Vuitton monogram in gold lettering."

"Customers are extremely surprised and pleased when we give them the chocolate gifts," boasts Michaels.

Chocolate Gifts Spread to Other Stores

Good news spreads fast. Jacqui Farina is in charge of merchandising at the 66 Louis Vuitton locations in the United States. She saw the success of the gift from Chocolates à la Carte and started ordering them for stores in other rlocations when they were involved in special events or in need of personalized gifts.

"We now have used everything from chocolates for a Barbie event in California to chocolate Eiffel Towers for a variety to promotions," says Farina. "Everything we do at Lois Vuitton has to be of the highest of standards and we get that from Diane Kalchbrenner, manager of the Las Vegas locations has also started to use chocolate gifts. Two years ago she was approached by JCB, a large Japanese credit card company that wanted to start a gift with purchase program.

For this program, Kalchbrenner developed a monogrammed hexagon chocolate box filled with fine truffles from CHocolates à la Carte. It has been so successful in bringing in new customers that she now has the same program with selected other credit card companies.

All three of these Louis Vuitton executives enjoy working with Chocolates à la Carte. As Ron Michaels says, "They are great people to work with and I constantly refer new customers to them. I'm in the luxury business and that means getting what you want. I always get that from Chocolates à la Carte."