By CAROLE O’KEEFFE
Correspondent

LYNNHAVEN—Long-time friends Ruby Weber and Betsy Wadington left positions in the corporate sales world for more genteel employment – their own gift business named “Please & Thankyou.”
Brand new customer Mary Porter, 73, of Norfolk is glad they did.
Porter drove from Norfolk the other day to get some more of those Moravian Spice Cookies she usually travels to North Carolina to buy. Some one at her church had gotten the cookies as a gift from Please & Thankyou and shared them at church.
Porter was at the S. Rosemont Road store the next day to lay in a supply of her own. “I’ve been eating them since I was a teenager,” Porter said.
Please & Thankyou was launched as a Michigan in-home business in June 1999 and moved to Virginia Beach in April 2001, with the beach, warmer weather and a growing economy as reasons.
Weber, 48, president of the company, formerly was president of a paper tableware manufacturer in Michigan. Wadington, 49, vice president of Please & Thankyou, previously founded and owned a career fair company and advertising agency for high technology and health care professionals.
“Betsy and I got tired of our corporate jobs,” Weber said, and they parlayed their difficulties in finding, according to Wadington, “new and terrific,” client gifts in their growing business at 195 S. Rosemont Road, between Sentara Way and the AutoNation vehicle dealership.
Weber recalls always looking for clever ways to say, “Please give me an appointment and thank you for your business,” hence the trademarked name of the business.
Now, their focus is on taking “away somebody else’s problems of finding that perfect gift item,” Weber said.
Primarily, Please & Thankyou specializes in creating gift packages that range from the more usual baskets filled with food and beverages to the more creative, for example teddy bears or rabbits dressed to the nines and carrying hostess gifts.
Some gifts are packaged around Jon Margeaux cq freezer to oven safe serving ware or even leather portfolios, Weber said.
For the sugar intolerant, one gift features pretzels, snack mix, coffee and assorted sugar-free candies in dark or milk chocolate, with or without nuts.
The bear or rabbit gift is $32. The sugar-free is $50.
Besides gifts, the company also puts together gift items for meetings and incentive reward programs.
They will also create table centerpieces, a few or hundreds, imprint napkins and ribbons and personalize wine bottles with permanent markers. Wadington handles event planning.
While much of their business is corporate, lately there has been a shift toward more retail walk-in business even though their showroom, workroom stockroom store is off the road.
They will fill any size order depending on the amount of money budgeted and will deliver for free within 10 miles and free to all area hospitals.
Only a tenth of the business comes from the Internet even with their Web site. “People go on line to get information,” Weber said. Then they call or email for more details or to place orders.
Wadington and Weber, along with one other full-timer and several part-timers, depending on seasonal demands, seem willing to do whatever it takes to please their customers.
They told the story of one gentleman who came into the store with a woman. He was upset, seeming not to want to be part of the shopping detail. Instead of leaving him to himself to fume, the partners took him to the combination production, customer service area and plied him with pleasant conversation and snacks. “Before he left, he was in quite a good mood,” Weber said.
Another customer, Laura Bragg, 35, who describes herself as a working mom, arrived at the store recently to address some Christmas cards. “I needed a quiet place to work,” the Linkhorn Park resident said. Several of her friends had recently had babies and she had gift packages with keepsake boxes made up at Please & Thankyou for them.
“A working mom needs somebody to help you simplify things,” Bragg said.

For further information, www.pleaseandthankyou.com or 498-4707.

Originally written for the Beacon, a Virginia Beach community news section of The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot.