No Faces, No Problem: What Ordering Willow Tree Figurines Taught Me About Hidden Costs

The first Monday in November, our COO forwarded me a request that changed how I think about corporate gifts. 200 client appreciation gifts. A nativity set for the office lobby. Six weeks until the holiday open house. And one line I couldn't make sense of: 'Why do Willow Tree figurines have no faces?'

I manage procurement for a 45-person wealth management firm. For the last five years, I've tracked our client appreciation budget—about $28,000 annually—in a spreadsheet that has saved us from more bad decisions than I can count. We'd bought branded candles, insulated bottles, leather journals. I didn't know much about Willow Tree. I'd seen it at gift shops, knew it was under the Demdaco umbrella, and assumed it was just another decorative line.

I was wrong, and the lesson cost me two weeks.

Why Do Willow Tree Figurines Have No Faces?

My first search was practical. I typed 'why do willow tree figurines have no faces' into a search engine after the COO asked me to confirm we were buying the right thing. From the outside, a group of faceless figurines looks unfinished. The reality is that the blank face is the point.

Willow Tree pieces are resin figurines designed by Susan Lordi and distributed under the Demdaco brand. As of January 2025, that's still where you'll find the current collection. The figures don't have detailed facial features because the emotion is carried by body language—the tilt of a head, a curved hand, the way two figures lean toward each other. Lordi leaves the faces open so the viewer fills in their own feeling. A piece called 'Gratitude' can be a thank-you to a mentor, a nurse, or a parent. The face is empty. The meaning isn't.

When I held one in a local gift shop, I got it. The face was empty, and somehow the feeling wasn't.

The First Quote Was Not the Lowest Cost

Our COO wanted two things we could hand out at the open house: a Willow Tree figurine for each client, wrapped, plus a broader holiday display for the office. I sent requests to three vendors. One distributor offered a 15% discount and free shipping. A local gift specialist quoted retail prices but guaranteed delivery by December 1. The third vendor had a huge online catalog, but no one I could actually call.

In my opinion, the 15% discount shouldn't have been a decision trigger. The upside was about $1,450 in savings. The risk was missing the open house. I kept asking myself: is $1,450 worth potentially mailing 200 embarrassed apologies? I calculated the worst case—a partial order, a week of phone calls, and an expensive rush shipment at the last minute. The expected value said the discount vendor might be fine. The downside, if they weren't, was catastrophic for a client-facing event.

We went with the local specialist. Then the real problem appeared.

The Discontinued Willow Tree Figurines Trap

Two days after placing the order, my assistant forwarded me an email that started with 'This item has been discontinued.' A discontinued Willow Tree figurine had made its way into our order. The distributor's website still listed it, but it wasn't in production anymore. We had a line item, a photo, a price, and a SKU. We didn't have the piece.

Here's what I learned about discontinued Willow Tree figurines: they exist for a reason. Willow Tree has been around for years, and some designs are retired over time. When that happens, the piece can become collectible. More importantly, if you're ordering in bulk, a discontinued piece shouldn't be the centerpiece of a client gift. You can't reliably replace it, and a gift set missing its main figure feels broken.

To be fair, the vendor wasn't trying to mislead me. Their catalog simply hadn't caught up. The issue was my assumption that a listed price meant an available product. We ended up replacing the retired piece with a current holiday figurine from the same collection. The cost was similar. The lesson was expensive: availability is part of total cost.

The Nativity Set Tested My Spreadsheet

The nativity set for the lobby was a separate headache. The Willow Tree Nativity collection is beautiful, but it's not one item. It's many pieces—Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, shepherds, wise men, animals, and an angel. That meant tracking multiple SKUs, multiple box sizes, and multiple delivery risks.

One vendor quoted the full set at $312 below the competition. The challenge arrived when shipping was added. The packaging for the nativity collection was large and fragile, and the freight cost made the 'lower' quote $84 higher than the other vendor. The lower quote wasn't lower. It was just earlier.

That's when I reminded myself: total cost of ownership includes the base price, shipping, handling, potential re-shipping, and the administrative hours spent chasing a delivery that arrives late. It's not a slogan. It's how you avoid buying a $312 discount that turns into an $84 overcharge.

And Yes, the Reed Diffuser Question

You might be wondering why a post about Willow Tree figurines mentions 'how do you make a reed diffuser.' That's fair. During the same project, one of our advisors asked: 'How do you make a reed diffuser? We could make our own and save money.'

The quick answer is simple: mix a carrier oil with fragrance oil, pour it into a narrow-neck bottle, insert reed sticks, and let capillary action do the work. The cost answer is less simple. For 200 units, the supplies—bottles, reeds, base oil, fragrance oil, labels—would have been about $3.40 each before shipping. A local specialty maker quoted $4.10 each, including bottles and labels, with a two-week lead time. On paper, DIY saved $0.70 per unit. In reality, it didn't count the messy filling day, the label printing, the risk of spilled oil, or the fact that none of us had made reed diffusers before.

We outsourced the diffuser, and we were happy we did. That's not because DIY is always wrong. It's because we had no expertise in it. I'd rather work with a specialist who knows their limits than a generalist who overpromises. The local maker who said 'this is our exact process' earned our trust more than anyone who said 'we can do everything.'

What I'd Do Differently

Looking back, I should have asked each vendor to confirm which Willow Tree products were currently in production before requesting quotes. At the time, I didn't know discontinued pieces could still appear as available. If I could redo that decision, I'd add 'Please flag any retired or discontinued items' to every quote request. But given what I knew then—essentially nothing about how collectible figurine lines are managed—the mistake was reasonable. It still cost us two days and one rushed replacement order.

I also should have started the whole process a month earlier. Six weeks felt safe. From the outside, buying 200 figurines looks like a routine order. The reality is that holiday demand, discontinued inventory, and shipping windows change the math. A firm that orders corporate gifts in September is not being overly cautious. They're being smart.

The Takeaway

If you ask me, a Willow Tree figurine is a good choice for a client appreciation gift because it doesn't tell the client exactly what to feel. That's rare. The no-face design isn't a quirk; it's a feature. But the procurement lesson is bigger than that: a discounted price is not a cost. A backordered SKU is not an order. A gift that arrives late is not a gift.

More often than not, the most expensive part of a corporate gift is the hidden work required to fix a mistake. I know because I've entered those mistakes into my cost-tracking spreadsheet, line by line. The missing face taught me to look at the whole figure. The missing figurine taught me to look at the whole supplier.

Done.