A peek inside Personalization Mall’s warehouse during peak season

Roughly 40 miles outside Chicago, Personalization Mall’s 365,000-square-foot production and fulfillment facility hums 24 hours a day, with 4,000 employees producing 150,000 items daily during the holiday season.

By the end of November, the web-only merchant that specializes in personalized gifts is operating at its peak to create 40,000 personalized ornaments and tens of thousands of other personalized stockings, blankets, mugs, cutting boards, champagne flutes and other gifts per day.

Personalization Mall’s 365,000-square-foot facility in Bolingbrook, Ill.

November and December bring in roughly 35-40% of all Personalization Mall’s annual revenue, says Dan Grebel, vice president of operations at PersonalizationMall.com. The rest of the year, the facility has a 10th of the employees — 400 — who can handle the production volume during the 10-month offseason.

Personalization Mall’s history and business model

Personalization Mall launched in 1998 as an online “mall” where consumers could choose from 20 different items to personalize. Today, the brand offers 2,000 unique “blank items” that shoppers can have personalized with one of 14 different methods, such as laser engraving, embroidery, glass printing, 3D printing, sandblasting and others, plus variations within each method. In total, the merchant now offers 40,000 different product designs, with new designs created each year.

New for this year is an agreement with The Elf on The Shelf. Shoppers can personalize apparel for their elves or purchase personalized items with the The Elf on the Shelf image on it.