6 Ecommerce Holiday Marketing Strategies to Learn from Mother’s and Father’s Day

Mother’s Day was just last month, and Father’s Day was recently celebrated —but is your ecommerce store ready to meet the demand of future holidays? 

As with most special events like Mother’s and Father’s Day, they give great opportunities for ecommerce retailers to boost their profits and gain repeat customers. In fact, Mother’s Day spending alone was more than $28 billion, where customers spent around $220 on average on gifts!

And the momentum isn’t slowing down—it’s skyrocketing year after year, and you can drive more sales and revenue in the coming months. Plus, these events are gift-giving times that do not have a seasonal theme (compared to Christmas, for example), opening the doors for all types of industries like fashion, furniture, and even eyewear. No matter the product, you have the opportunity to sell anything.

2022 Ecommerce Trends on Mother’s and Father’s Day

Here, we’ll talk about the Mother’s and Father’s Day trends and how your ecommerce retail store can take advantage of applying these for the upcoming holidays. While these holidays have been occurring for ages, there are new trends to observe in 2022. Keep these insights and forecasts in mind, as we’ll discuss how you can turn them into actionable business steps in the next section.

1. Number of People Who Celebrate

A whopping 84% of US citizens planned to celebrate Mother’s Day this 2022. This figure has been relatively stable since 2009, only moving from a range of 83% to 86% at the most—showing the demand for consistency and stability for the years to come. Given these figures, we can safely assume that many consumer markets will benefit from people celebrating their parents every year. Even in the lowest years, the majority of our population will spend time and money on their moms and dads.

2. Popular Gift Categories

For Mother’s Day, the top gift-giving categories for the year are jewelry and special outings, with electronics recently becoming a more popular choice for gifts on the flip side. The top categories for Father’s Day gifts include greeting cards, special outings, and clothing. Other categories like personal care items and electronic items are also showing an uptick in popularity but are still relatively insignificant compared to the other types of gifts.

Source: NRF

3. Average Spend Per Gift

In terms of spending, the average for Mother’s Day gifts has been increasing yearly since 2018. From an average spend of $179.77 in 2018, the figure skyrocketed to $220.48 in 2021 and will likely reach $245.76 this year. We see a similar upward trend with Father’s Day spending as well. In other words, Mother’s and Father’s Day will continue to increase in value for the years to come—so better start planning ahead! Prepare for the holidays that’ll undoubtedly be fruitful for your company.

4. Demand for Convenience and Uniqueness

There is a two-pronged demand during these kinds of holidays. We see people buying early to guarantee product availability (and allow for any possible delays), but there’s also an increase in the number of people who buy gifts on the day itself, where 48% will shop in the last week. This may be because of same-day fulfillment offers and click-and-collection options for last-minute shoppers—which many customers now expect.

Statistics show that 24% and 26% of shoppers prioritize convenience in finding a gift for Mother’s and Father’s Day, respectively. Nearly half of them will try to find a unique or different present. We should also note that many will want a gift that creates a special memory.

5. The Norm of Online Shopping

Even when the global pandemic made shopping harder, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day purchases did not stop. Online shopping has become a norm, and we see that it’ll continue to be so even with physical stores now reopening. Even the statistics on online shopping shows that COVID-19 was a catalyst.

In the US, 91% of the population will shop online by 2023, with retail purchases following the growth of that new habit. Digital shopping channels are now ingrained into customers’ buying behaviors—so it’s ecommerce’s time to shine.

6. Global Ecommerce Growth

This year, the global ecommerce growth rate is at 12.2%, bringing ecommerce worldwide sales to a whopping $5.5 trillion. While this is a slight dip from last year’s rate (16.3%), it doesn’t discount the fact that ecommerce retail sales will still increase from 20.3% in 2022 to 23.6% by 2025.

Therefore, it’s best that your ecommerce company leverages Mother’s and Father’s Day year after year to build loyalty with your shoppers, using that momentum for future revenue.

6 Ways to Take Advantage of these Trends

So, what can ecommerce retailers like yourself do differently? How can you build and drive loyalty ahead of such critical shopping days with online shoppers? As an expert in product discovery and search, we’ve listed the ways you can take advantage of similar holiday sales:

1. Dedicate a Website Section or Landing Page

You want your customers to have an easy time shopping, so create category pages or “gift guide” landing pages with links to the most gift-worthy items of your business. They should find it easy to spot the best gifts and compare them to other products on your website.

Organize a gift guide to help their shoppers find the perfect present for their dear old mom or dad. Make sure the products are also categorized based on different parameters, so it’s easier for the shopper to browse based on need. You can also get creative with strategic write-ups to explain why a particular product would be perfect for their parents. For example, you can say how a new pair of sunglasses will “protect your mom’s eyesight during a sunny picnic by the beach,” since nearly 60% of them will take their moms on a special trip.

You can also drive your readers to the holiday landing pages for a seamless journey through customer touchpoints if you have an email list for email marketing. Once they find the perfect gift, consider offering one-click checkout options to minimize the friction between inspiration and conversion.

But aside from building gift guides and custom landing pages, you have to make sure that you make it easy for customers to find what they are looking for. Customers nowadays don’t have much time—they want a smooth experience that will guide them to the product they want, fast. That’s why you also need to think about product discovery and social commerce. Make it easy for website visitors to discover products on your ecommerce store, especially on holidays such as Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Combining these with your social commerce activities will lead to more conversions and happier customers.

2. Promote Holiday-Specific Discounts and Sales

Aside from dedicating a page, you should also consider giving discounts and sales specific to the holiday. Not only do customers already expect this, but it’s a good way to encourage sales and overshadow the many competitors you’ll have leading up to the events. 

When thinking about what kind of discount strategy will work, evaluate the products you have to see which ones will work best as gifts, and which ones take up most of your inventory and sales. Moreover, if most of your items are gift-worthy, you can offer sitewide discounts like 10% off their entire cart.

Plus, ensure that you stay updated with online trends and popular causes to know what products to highlight. For example, there may be an ongoing trend about sustainability that millennial customers will appreciate or a TikTok-famous type of product that Gen-Z children will gravitate towards. 

3. Leverage on Upselling and Cross-selling Opportunities

Don’t stop at making a single sale—find ways to encourage the customer to buy more.

Focus on creating upselling and cross-selling opportunities in the dedicated holiday website section or any of the product pages. By doing so, your customers will feel like your company is helping them get the best gift for their parents, while you increase your average order value to generate more revenue.

Amazon does a great job of this by having “Buy It With” and “Discover Similar Items” sections within the product page. Shoppers will naturally consider these add-ons without feeling like a business is trying to get them to purchase more products.

We recommend adding prominent links to similar or related higher-value items throughout your website. For example, for mommy-style Sunday dresses, you can upsell them by promoting more intricate (and expensive!) versions of the outfit, or cross-sell by offering the best-paired sandals as thoughtful add-ons. Go a step further by offering hyper-personalized and smart product recommendations that can help display products with data-informed AI algorithm predictions that are likely to be highly relevant to customers. These include:

• Styled shoppable images that enable shoppers to “complete the look” from an initial product search.
• Recommend clothing or accessories that could coordinate with the products shoppers are browsing.
• Similar items to the ones customers are browsing to provide suitable alternatives.

4. Bring Back Physical Catalogs

It may surprise you, but physical catalogs are making a comeback among millennials, as they enjoy the tactile experience of opening mail. It’s amusing for those above the age of 40, but the fact is that millennials aren’t digital natives, and are finding nostalgia in old-school fun. 

While accurate tags in online catalogs are important it’s even more important in a physical catalog. You can use ViSenze Smart Tagging to automatically enhance your product catalog at scale with accurate descriptive tags. 

Moreover, millennials are the biggest spenders. Consumers aged 25 to 34 spend $367 on Mother’s Day gifts—a hundred dollars more than the average. You’ll do your company a favor by appealing to this market (assuming that your products are geared towards them).

So, consider having product catalogs that highlight Mother’s and Father’s Day events. Try to mimic the look of your digital landing pages to have campaign cohesion, and have interactive elements (e.g., pages that flip out to reveal more outfit colors or QR codes for immediate check out) for engagement.

5. Be Creative in Avoiding Returns

We now understand that ecommerce returns are one of the greatest headaches a company can have. Unfortunately, the issue often peaks during holiday seasons because not everybody will be happy with a surprise gift. In fact, more than $761 billion worth of products is returned every year!

So, consider having creative solutions to avoid returns as much as possible. One example is to have digital gifts that the parents could “open” online. Once revealed, the recipient can accept or exchange the gift before sending something on their way. It’s like having a preview of the gift before it goes through a delivery process that’s cumbersome to reverse.

You can also go with more traditional ways to avoid returns like how Nordstrom does it, offering shoppers multiple ways to make a return via curbside, in-store, or mail.

6. Accommodating Last-Minute Shoppers

Given that more and more shoppers are buying Mother’s and Father’s Day gifts on the day itself, ensure that you accommodate all last-minute shoppers to milk your potential holiday revenue. 

You can ramp up your promotions a week before the holiday, send out more emails, and move your promotions to the top of your website. You want to have it above the fold of your page to capture the shopper’s attention and meet them where they are.

You can also simply add an “Available to ship now!” below your product shots, assuring shoppers that their gift will arrive ASAP.

Also, offer alternative payment methods to reduce friction in the checkout process and increase sales. Remember that these shoppers are in a rush, and would like to have their preferred way of paying immediately—including digital wallets like PayPal, Apple Pay, and buy-now-pay-later options like Afterpay.

It’s Actually Ecommerce Retailer’s Day

You’re now informed of the learnings, latest trends, and exact steps to take advantage of special occasions such as Mother’s and Father’s Day to replicate for similar future sales-driven holidays. What’s left is to implement these insights on your ecommerce retail website, tailoring your approach for maximized revenue. Doing so, you’ll also build trust and goodwill with your customers (and their families!) for more repeat customers. Is your website ready to meet the upcoming demand?

ViSenze is the smartest product discovery tool for smart recommendations and catalog intelligence. We make it easy for your customers to find what they want, for your team to analyze product performances, and for your business to continuously increase its average order value.

Get in touch with our team today! The holidays are just around the corner.