By Roy Erez, Loop Commerce
According to psychologists, 20% of us are chronic procrastinators. We put off finishing tasks at home, work, school and in relationships, so it’s not surprising that we also put off buying gifts. Whether it’s for holidays, birthdays or other occasions, we wait until the last minute to buy gifts for the people in our lives. And that means a considerable amount of money is being left on the table for retailers without a solution for last-minute gifters.
For example, by prominently highlighting holiday shipping cutoff dates on their websites, retailers are telling shoppers to go elsewhere. These shoppers assume they’ve missed the shipping deadline so they turn to another retailer to buy the gift. But data from Loop Commerce, a product-based e-gifting SaaS, shows the folly in this approach.
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According to our data, a staggering number of gifts are purchased last minute (defined as gifts bought the day before or the day of a major holiday). Any retailer that doesn’t offer a solution for last minute shoppers is losing a considerable number of sales. Some of our most recent research reveals just how high that number of last minute e-gifters is:
- 54% for Valentine’s Day 2015.
- 43% for Mother’s Day 2015.
- 38% for Father’s Day 2015.
Additionally, quite a few gifts are purchased well beyond last minute, with some gifts purchased even one to two weeks after the holiday. Last Christmas, aggregated e-gift data from our retail partners showed:
- 23% of Christmas e-gifts were purchased on December 24th and 25th.
- 38% of e-gifts purchased from December 26th to December 31st were Christmas gifts.
- 10% of e-gifts purchased during the first week of January were also Christmas related.
With this in mind, retailers should do whatever they can to extend their last minute and belated gift shopping window, including:
- Offering two-day, one-day or even same-day delivery (when possible).
- Adopting a “buy-anywhere, fulfill-anywhere, return-anywhere” philosophy. Offering something as simple as buy online and pickup in-store enables gift recipients to accept their gift at their local store, skipping long lines at registers or post offices.
- Providing a personalized e-card that is sent immediately to the recipient, letting them know the physical gift is on its way and the sender has not forgotten them. This maintains the thoughtfulness of gift-giving while hiding the price of the gift. (Retailers should also offer the option of a gift receipt should they need it.)
- Continuing to market your holiday merchandise after the event date, recognizing that some customers are fine with buying belated holiday gifts. This technique enables retailers to get a greater ROI from their holiday-related creative and promotions.
By adopting these techniques, retailers can demonstrate they’ve got the customer covered even if they forgot one person on their list or put off their shopping until the last minute. As a result, retailers can help customers make sure that nobody will know they almost forgot to get that special someone something this year.
Roy Erez is the CEO and co-founder of Loop Commerce, an enterprise-grade, product-based e-gifting SaaS solution that integrates directly with the retailer and offers checkout, delivery and redemption of products as gifts.
