I love freebies!

One of the advantages of working for a baby products company (or another division within the same Corporation) is that you are typically able to get some amazing deals on the expensive baby gear which most parents want or need to have.
Our company offers a lot of really good deals through our employee purchase program and we are definiely planning on taking advantage of those offers.

Now, an even better deal is when you actually get those expensive baby items FOR FREE. That's right - FREE! We recently scored some fantastic items, which we would have had to purchase as some point in near future.

My company, Baby & Parenting Essentials which owns Graco, Teutonia and Aprica, participates in a Worldwide Baby Products Trade Show every fall in Cologne, Germany. We always send samples of the new lines, new styles and fashions, some of the good ole tried and true favotites, and basically try to pick up as many new orders as possible. The samples come from the US (Graco), Europe (Graco & Teutonia) and Japan, (Aprica). Yes, we have our fingers in everything...

This year a bunch of US Graco products were sent over here to be presented to some customers from France and Russia, who are interested in ordering the US range for its pretty colors. After the show they had all that stuff left over, and since they are not allowed to sell it here in Europe as is (due to EU compliance needs), the VP of Sales told me I could pick whatever I wanted and they would ship it from the show to the Geneva office for me.

Oh my!!

Well last week all my requested items came in and it was a blast putting them together and playing around with them. It felt liek early Christmas!! Here is what we got:

A Travel System (stroller + infant car seat)

A 4-in-1 convertible high chair (this grows with the baby and has a base that can be strapped to a regular dining chair as they get bigger).

And a convertible car seat (good for a child up to 100lbs - I almost could have fir in that before being prego!!)

So cool! Two things are wonderful in this entire sitiuation: we are going to save a ton of money thanks to their generosity. And also, we no longer have to worry about how we are going to transport those particular products from the US to Geneva. We were determined to get US compliant gear since we will be moving back in a couple of years and we don't want to have to replace everything - and it does not seem like the local authorities will give us grief about using US stuff. Instinctively, US regulations are a lot more stringent than EU's though it can be different in some aspects (hence my earlier comment about B&PE not being able to sell US range Graco as is here in Europe...).

And here's us having some fu with all our new toys... errr... our future kid's toys that is. :))