5 Types of Retail Gift guides and how to create them for Holiday Event Sales

Gift guides are an incredibly important part of driving sales during the holiday shopping season. A gift guide gives your online store or eCommerce mobile app an opportunity to highlight a curated selection of products and help shoppers match potential gifts to the right person. Holiday shoppers want to give gifts that show thought, care, and creativity, but it’s common to get stuck or overwhelmed when trying to narrow down gift choices from a store’s whole selection. Last-minute shoppers who are out of ideas will turn to gift guides to save time and find just what they’re looking for. 

Gift guides give you an opportunity to market your products in a unique way. Beyond conventional product descriptions, you want to show shoppers how useful your products are and how they will be appropriate for the right occasion, a subset of people with certain interests or qualities, and other specifications that gift shoppers are looking for. Whether by occasion, age, price, interest, personality, you can directly target the features that make your products a great gift. With a clearly-presented, well laid-out gift guide, you can expose customers to a wide range of products that they might have overlooked or missed otherwise. 

How to Choose Items for Each Type of Gift Guide

• Gift Guides for Holidays and Events: 

When choosing items for a holiday gift guide, you’ll want to research popular items of the year, like bestselling books, accessories for the latest phones, or new personal care items, as well as analyze your own store’s best-selling items. Asking customers on social media and email marketing lists if they have any products they want for the holidays can also help stock your gift guide. And finally, categorizing your guide according to subsets of customers like the other gift guide types can enhance their value to customers trying to decide which gift works best for each person. 

• Gifts for Him, Gifts for her

When selecting products for this kind of gift guide, consider the thought process of the gift-giver and the recipient. Gift guide descriptions should appeal to buyers of the other gender compared to the standard product description that might have jargon or specifications that would confuse gift-givers. Instead, it should make it clear why the recipient will love the gift. Having additional interest-based categories within ‘for him’ and ‘for her’ can also be beneficial: examples such as ‘books for him’ and ‘garden supplies for her’. 

• Gifts based on Age and Price

Gift bundles can be used in price-based gift guides to fit the right price thresholds and to upsell items you have in your inventory that won’t work as gifts otherwise. Price-based and age-based sales are also a prime target for last-minute gifts for those who need quick ideas, so items with mass appeal and easy-to-buy options should go on these guides, and they can be sent out late in the shopping season.

• Gift guides based on interest 

When selecting products for an interest-based guide, review your sales data for the most popular items in their categories to add as gifts, then reach out to suppliers to see what they can offer for people with these interests. Interest-based guides can also benefit from an appealing design with flashy graphics based on each interest or hobby. Make sure that the guide is responsive and is navigable on multiple sales platforms so users can browse the various categories for different gift recipients easily. 

• Gifts based on Personality

Personality-based gift guides can also benefit from bundles; even items based in different categories and interests can be bundled together if they fit the personality type. Having an organized layout that is viewable on all platforms is important since it helps contrast different personality types and show shoppers exactly which categories they should browse for gifts. Remember to market personality-based gifts to the buyer by explaining why a person with a different personality type might enjoy a kind of gift that they themselves wouldn’t like.

Gift Guides for Holidays and Events:

The event, holiday, or occasion can be an organizing factor for gift guides. Products may be themed for certain holidays, or they can be made for the season. 

For Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, create gift guides that show gifts that would be great for parents. Remember to market toward both the gifter and the receiver of the gift when placing a product in a gift guide, so think of products that would appeal to people buying gifts for their parents, not only items that parents might buy for themselves. 

Black Friday and the following weeks are the biggest gift-buying period for the holiday season. Shoppers are looking for the best deals as well as a variety of gifts for all kinds of people, so this gift guide should be widely varied, taking shoppers on a tour through all your product categories. 

For Christmas, New Year’s, and other winter holidays, sweaters, scarves, gloves, and other winter apparel make great gifts appropriate for colder weather. Parents and grandparents giving gifts to children makeup one of the most common types of gifts, so have selections for toys, games, and phone and electronic accessories that kids will love.

For events falling in other seasons, maintain an array of appropriate gifts, like outdoors and beach gear for summer or gardening supplies for spring. 

For Valentine’s Day, focus on romantic gifts such as jewellery, flowers, chocolate, and fashionable apparel. 

All year-round, maintain up-to-date gift guides for birthdays and anniversaries. This kind of guide can be segmented by relationships such as friends, parents, children, siblings, and more.  

Read also :- Why eCommerce sales from mobile apps are more valuable than website sales

Gifts for Him, Gifts for her

For him’ and ‘for her’ are broad categories, but they make a great starting point for buyers looking for inspiration for the perfect gift for their significant other, family member, or friend. Shopping for the other gender can be a challenge, so highlighting items that are trending and demonstrate why they’ll make great, sincere gifts ‘for him’ or ‘for her’. 

Gifts based on Age and Price

Sorting gifts by price can be a good way to separate out different intended price ranges for customers, though they can find something they like outside their price range. If free shipping or other discounts are offered for a higher-order total, they may look to fill out their list. Offer gifts under $100, under $50, and under $20. Fill these spaces in your guide with bestselling items with mass appeal, but also make a section for your luxury goods to show off items over $500.

Gifts ideas for specific age groups can give inspiration to shoppers as well: 

Gifts for babies: For babies and toddlers, try to offer the latest unique toys, dolls, and picture books to keep them entertained, plus apparel that will fit as they grow. 

Gifts for Kids & Teens: Offer fun and educational toys, books, and electronics so adults shopping for kids will feel like their gifts can benefit the recipient. 

Gifts for Older people: Create a selection in the gift guide for vintage or retro products, books, and music that buyers will see as great gifts for the older people in their lives. 

Gift guides based on interest

Interests are a great starting point for gift guides; customers can be sure that they’re getting the right gift if it fits the hobbies and interests of the person they got it for. 

For book and movie lovers, search for the most popular, overlooked and trending titles so your selection of gifts stays up to date. The same goes for tech geeks- stock the latest phones, gadgets, and accessories that are practical and useful, and ones they might not have already. 

Other interests follow similar goals: durable apparel for the outdoors, branded apparel for sports fans, gear for more comfortable travel and camping, grooming tools for pet owners, cookbooks and unique ingredients for foodies and chefs, and makeup sets for cosmetics users. 

Gifts based on Personality

Gifts based on interest are a good start, but gift-givers may feel more confident about their choice if the gift matches the recipient’s personality type. 

Groupings can include: 

Gifts for introverts and extroverts: For extroverts who love throwing parties and contributing to group events, getting gifts that are ‘loud’ and exciting, or ones that they can share with others, will be appreciated. Home decorations, party games, and more could be great gifts. Introverts can get gifts that help them with solitary activities and will respond well to simple, personalized gifts like books rather than extravagant ones. 

Gifts for Care-free & Fun loving people:

Focus less on practical and usable gifts and more on fun, surprising, and exciting ones, or items they can use on special occasions like wines and unique foods.

Gifts for logical people:

Practical, helpful gifts are a great choice for logical-minded recipients. Useful kitchen appliances and housewares, organizational tools like calendars and whiteboards, and the tools they’ll use regularly will be appreciated. 

Gifts for Explorers:

Offer outdoor and hiking gear, hobby guides and tickets to new experiences.

Gifts for the Artistic:

Sell crafts, art supplies, and decorative items for their living space. 

Gifts for a supportive person:

Offer a selection of gifts that buyers can use to show appreciation and thanks for the support they’ve received. Framed pictures, scented candles, and great-tasting food bundles could make great gifts.  

Final Thoughts

Creating a gift guide that showcases products according to these types of categories will give shoppers inspiration to match everyone in their life to a fitting gift for the occasion. An effective gift guide will lead to increased browsing time and exposure to a wider variety of products than customers would normally encounter, and make them more comfortable buying items they aren’t familiar with. Gift guides will be the first place people turn for new ideas and last-minute gifts, so having a good one every year will make great products stand out in an eCommerce store’s holiday sale.