Department-56 Buying Checklist: Mercury Glass Ornaments, Holiday Figurines and the Snow Globe Question

I manage the holiday buying budget for a 40-person gift retailer. For the past 7 years, I've tracked every order in our cost system, negotiated with more than 30 vendors, and audited the numbers after every season. Department-56 is one of the lines we buy every year. It's also one of the easiest lines to over-order.

If you're buying Department-56 for a store, a corporate gift program, or a client project, this checklist is for you. It's not about finding the 'best' piece. It's about making the buy work without wrecking your budget.

Before you start

This checklist assumes you already have a budget number in mind. If not, do that first. Then walk through the seven steps below. I use this exact process every season, and it has saved us more than once.

The 7-Step Checklist

1. Step 1: Define the selling scenario before you browse.

   Department-56 covers a lot of ground: Christmas village sets, snow globes, collectible figurines, tea sets, mercury glass ornaments, and home fragrance. The product range is wide, but your shelf space is not. Ask yourself who is buying this from you. Are they nostalgic grandparents buying a village piece? A corporate client looking for a memorable gift? A collector chasing a retired piece? The answer changes what you should carry.

   If your customers are mostly gift buyers looking for something under $75, then the safer order is Department 56 mercury glass ornaments and small holiday figurines. If your customers are collectors, a higher-ticket village set might work. It's not about what you like. It's about what your customer expects.

2. Step 2: Set a price ceiling for each SKU, not for the whole category.

   This is where I see procurement mistakes. A buyer gets excited about a beautiful village set, then adds 'a few extra ornaments' to make the average cost feel better. But the total cost is still the total cost. I've learned to set a maximum cost per item based on the target selling price and required margin. The formula is simple: retail price times (1 - target margin) equals the maximum cost you can pay.

   Let's use a holiday figurine that retails at $80. If you need a 50% gross margin, your maximum cost is $40. If the wholesale price is $48, you don't 'make it up' by adding more units. You either raise the retail price or don't order it. Using this rule, we cut a ton of inventory loss from our 2023 buy.

3. Step 3: Check licensed collections before you place the order.

   The Department 56 National Lampoon Christmas Vacation collection is a great example. It has built-in name recognition. Shoppers search for it. But licensed pieces also come with a timing risk. If they don't sell by early January, they can be hard to move at full price. The same goes for Disney, Peanuts, and Home Alone-themed pieces.

   When I audited our 2023 buy, the biggest overruns came from a few licensed sets that we ordered without a full display plan. My rule: only order a licensed set if you can display it as a complete story. A single Cousin Eddie holiday figurine might sit on the shelf because it looks weird without the rest of the scene. But the full display can be a destination. The upside is a strong traffic driver. The risk is seasonal markdowns. I usually ask myself, 'Is this display worth potentially discounting it by 40% after Christmas?'

4. Step 4: Measure the display footprint and the box size.

   Product photos are not enough. A Department-56 snow globe might look like a small accent, but the box might be 10 inches tall because of the base. A village building might be 12 inches long, which sounds manageable until you realize your display case is only 36 inches wide and already holds two other houses.

   We had a plan to order 18 village buildings for a front-window display. I measured the window, then looked at the actual box dimensions on the spec sheets. We ended up with 9. That saved us about $2,300 and a very awkward January display.

5. Step 5: Add breakage, shipping, and receiving time into the total cost.

   Department-56 pieces are fragile. Porcelain, glass, and crystal don't travel well if they're not packed carefully. We didn't have a formal receiving inspection process during our first year. It cost us when two cases of glass ornaments arrived with cracked boxes and no one noticed until a customer opened one at the register. That was a $1,200 lesson.

   Now our receiving checklist includes: inspect the outer carton before signing; open every carton within 48 hours; photograph any damage; file the carrier claim immediately. Also, add delivery timing to the cost. We avoid ordering anything fragile during the last two weeks before Black Friday unless it ships with a guaranteed delivery date. Rush freight is not a line item you want to discover after an order is late.

   Even after approving a snow globe order, I kept second-guessing. What if the globes shifted in transit? I didn't relax until the first carton opened clean.

6. Step 6: Answer the snow globe TSA question before it reaches customer service.

   Can you take a snow globe through TSA? This is a real question. We hear it every season from customers who buy a snow globe as a gift and then fly home with it. The short answer: yes, if the liquid inside is 3.4 ounces or less. Larger snow globes should go in checked baggage.

   "Snow globes are allowed in carry-on baggage if the liquid is 3.4 ounces (100 ml) or less. If it's larger, place it in checked baggage." — TSA.gov

   I'm not a TSA agent, so check the official website before you travel. But adding this answer to our product care cards saved our customer service team from answering the same question forty times in December.

7. Step 7: Build a carryover plan before the product arrives.

   Not every SKU is going to sell at full price. That's not a sign of failure; it's a fact of retail. Before you sign the purchase order, decide when you'll discount and by how much. For us, that means a markdown calendar: 20% off after December 15, 40% off after January 5. It's painful, but it's better than sitting on inventory through March.

   And don't buy a large lot of a 'retiring' piece hoping it will appreciate. Department-56 has a strong collectible market, but predicting future secondary-market value is a guess. I've never fully understood the retirement logic. My best guess is it's tied to licensing and production cycles, but the pattern isn't always obvious. Buy for your customer's demand, not for investment speculation.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Ordering by looks instead of specs. Always check dimensions, weight, and packaging data before adding to the cart.
• Ignoring the TSA question. If you sell snow globes online, put the carry-on rule on the product page. It reduces returns and customer service headaches.
• Splitting orders among too many vendors. We've done this to chase small price differences. Then shipping costs ate the savings. Group your orders where you can.
• Storing pieces without original packaging. Porcelain and mercury glass need the original foam boxes. Loose wrapping in a plastic bin is a breakage problem waiting to happen.

Bottom Line

Department-56 can be a wonderful line for the right customer. It's warm, nostalgic, and beautifully made. But 'right customer' is the key phrase. If your clientele is mainly price-led and looking for generic decor, then this line might not be your best percentage. That's okay. When you do buy it, use this checklist to keep the emotion out of the order and the numbers in your favor.