marketing online gift companies

Why I Used an Online Gift Store

With Christmas just around the corner, I was all excited and gearing up for it. I love the atmosphere and the color associated with Christmas. It’s also time for gifts and loads of shopping. But this year, my company had planned a 70% sales hike during Christmas.

It meant extra work hours, long meetings with my marketing team and no time for shopping. I was flabbergasted when my weekly roster arrived with my schedule for the week preceding Christmas. I had no time for shopping and gifts. This was when I decided to use one of the online gift stores.

Most of my friends were shopping online and I said, ‘why not’? Let me say that it was one of the most satisfying experiences that I have ever had.

The variety

Being an online gift store, I hardly had many expectations. But the first thing that took me by surprise and amazed me was the variety on display. There were hundreds of gifts that I could choose from and have it delivered to my friends and relatives in a completely personalized manner.

Russian Lacquer Boxes, exquisite terra cotta Ceramics, superbly designed Easter Eggs, Nesting Dolls, glass figurines and ethnic country gifts, you can choose what you want at an online gift store.

In fact I can very well say that there are more gifts available than what you would get in a mall.

Christmas specials

You can browse through the gifts category wise as well. Many online gift stores also have Christmas specials where you can buy gifts at reduced discount rates. These are festive offers and are limited to availability of stock. So you need to buy it the moment you spot a good deal.

The best part about an online gift store is that it ends all the hassles that you face while buying gifts. You no longer have to run from one store to another, look after the gift wrapping and timely delivery.

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Would you shop here? Marketing Ideas??

I have just opened my online shop ‘wiltshire-giftbaskets.co.uk’ selling gift baskets. I am trying to work out if I should make any edits to the website to make it more appealing, any comments? Also I am looking for any marketing ideas to get my website out there, I currently have a marketing company working on getting me on the search engines.

Hi Natalie

Had a quick look.

Some thoughts:

The pink and heart theme looks a bit too lovey-dovey Valentine Day-ish to me. This is a year-round business, so maybe you need to make it more general. You do need a banner picture at the top. The site seems a bit bare without.

You might consider a bit of sales talk for each of the categories – an intro telling people why a gift basket makes sense for a birthday etc, how it saves time and hassle. basic principle is to sell the BENEFITS, rather than the item itself. People buy benefits – a saving in time, convenience, originality, etc. – Why people should buy a gift basket rather than send an M&S voucher.

Pictures load slowly. You may need to look at the resolutions (72dpi is standard)

But more fundamentally, Wiltshire Gift Baskets to me (living in Kent) conjured up an image of Wiltshire specialities – whatever they might be – I dunno, maybe Wiltshire bacon. But the gifts are fairly generic. Nothing wrong in that, but it may puzzle people slightly. Is there actually an opening for gift baskets of Wiltshire specialities? – maybe.

Now, other ideas to steer people towards the site (apart from the search engine stuff):

“County’ type magazines. Where I live, there are about 4 or 5, a few free. Write an article about the business for them. Not TOO sales-y, it needs to appear to be editorial. Most of these mags rely on such pieces, and welcome stuff pre-written – it saves them time. They might try to persuade you to advertise with them – resist until the business takes off.

Local newspapers: again they are always crying out for material. If you can write a piece about your new business and make it not too obviously a self-advertisement ….

Links with other sites – local business sites, wedding sites, local town sites.

Good luck!

The Gift: Network Marketing