The most popular gift-shopping time of the year is just a few short weeks away and retailers across the globe are preparing to tackle the season. According to Coresight Research, the US Gifting Market is expected to grow to $816 billion by 2024, making it crucial for retailers and marketers to bring out their most creative and carefully planned strategies for optimizing ecommerce.
Shopping for gifts is a very different journey than shopping for yourself, and the target customer may be nothing like the gifting customer. This is why it is essential for retailers to understand the gift shopping journey and the opportunity to gain two customers with every gifting transaction.
During the CommerceNext 2022 panel “Christmas in June: Optimizing Ecommerce for the Gift Buyer,” executives from Spiceology, madein, GiftNow and Coresight Research covered these points and shared insightful tips to help you maximize gifting revenues.
Read on to explore the session’s key insights or watch the full recording below.
Who Is Your Consumer?
First and foremost, it is crucial for your brand to understand who exactly is shopping in your stores and on your website this holiday season. Every retailer has spent extensive amounts of time and effort collecting meaningful data that explains who the target audience is: how old they are, what they enjoy, their shopping habits and much more. However, when the gifting season comes along, MadeIn believes marketers must switch their focus. More often than not, the person completing the purchase is not the consumer you are so good at attracting and motivating to make a purchase.
GiftNow explained that retailers must understand there is a different set of considerations when attracting a gift buyer because they have other priorities in their shopping journey. For example, gift shoppers aren’t worried about the technical specifications of the item, they are worried if the receiver is going to like it or appreciate it.
Gift buyers also have different reasons for not purchasing an item. While your typical target customer may reconsider things like shipping costs, gift shoppers have other worries, like the item fitting. Therefore, instead of spending your marketing dollars on pushing the path-to-purchase tactics that entice your usual target audience, put yourself in the gift shoppers’ shoes. Maybe have an extensive size chart and product description or include testimonials of those who loved your product. It is imperative in optimizing ecommerce that your brand not only knows the target consumer but also who would be shopping for them.
Establish Your Brand as the Holiday Gifting Hub
There are a variety of avenues your brand can take to showcase your products as the most “giftable” items on the market. A majority of brands believe in optimizing ecommerce efforts for the traditional target consumer, however, as we just discussed, the gifting season welcomes an additional group of customers.
The landing page of Spiceology’s online store used to open up with an identifying question asking, “Are you a home cook, a griller or a chef?” But the real question their website viewers ran into was, “What if I’m a gift shopper?” After receiving feedback about the exclusive entrance to its website, Spiceology decided to create a more personalized shopping experience for the gifters.
Adapting your ecommerce experience to become a smooth and simple shopping place for gift shoppers during the holiday season can help ensure you not only gain a customer with the gift receiver, but also with the gift buyer.
In addition, MadeIn believes gifting doesn’t only have to be something a consumer does. It uses business-to-consumer gifting to present its brand as the premiere gifting spot and build loyalty with its customers. MadeIn has learned that one of the best ways it can show its customers the products are giftable is to show them firsthand, so they offer gifts with purchase during the holiday season. It not only makes the customer feel more connected to the brand, but it also gives them a reason to return.
The U.S. Gifting Market is projected to grow by billions of dollars in the next couple of years, and the holiday season is one of the biggest ways retailers can take advantage of this growth. Understanding the gift buyer’s journey and optimizing ecommerce experiences for these shoppers can help ensure a successful holiday season this year and in the years to come. For more tips on the holiday season, check out the highlights from our webinar on effectively reaching today’s holiday shopper.
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