Mother’s Day is just around the corner. Once again, this year will be particularly tough, with many families unable to celebrate together in-person, so making it easy for people to find and send meaningful gifts online is more important than ever.
Consumers spend almost $30 billion on Mother’s Day. To become a destination for consumers ahead of this important holiday, you must deliver online shopping experiences that are not only convenient but that also enable shoppers to create deep connections with their loved ones.
According to NRF’s historical data, shoppers’ top considerations when buying Mother’s Day gifts are the following:
- Is it unique? (43%)
- Will it create a special memory? (41%)
- Will it be convenient for me to find? (25%)
- Is the price right? (17%)
With these criteria in mind, you can craft buying journeys that align with what shoppers are looking for. From your website to your marketing and social channels, here are the creative online shopping experiences your customers will love this Mother’s Day:
1. Create Thematic Inspiration Galleries With Mother’s Day Gift Ideas
Mother’s Day is a celebration for all kinds of moms with different personality types, career paths, hobbies, and more. To enable shoppers to discover the perfect present, you can create inspiration galleries that allow them to explore gift ideas based on themes or personas. For example, gifts for the “Boss Babe Mom” or the “Grandma Who Loves to Cook,” etc.
The key to creating effective inspiration galleries at scale is using smart merchandising rules to dynamically group products according to select attributes (think flowing skirts for the Boho Mom collection). This keeps the galleries accurate and updated with new items from the relevant categories.
Shopping for gifts can be overwhelming and time-consuming, especially when consumers have a lot of choices. For shoppers whose top consideration when buying Mother’s Day gifts is convenience, your site must provide a flawless navigation experience. Your search bar and results pages are a critical part of this experience, and they can be optimized specifically for the holiday in a number of easy-to-do ways. For example, as a shopper types a query, you can provide gift recommendations in a drop-down list beneath the search bar to offer some instant inspiration.
As shoppers explore product listings on the results page, they should be able to narrow down the items according to their key criteria. A price filter is a no-brainer, but in addition to that, you’ll want to enable them to sort by their mom’s favorite colors or her preferred style of jewelry, for example. If your product tags are detailed and robust, you can use them to automatically create a great filter and faceted search experience.
3. Celebrate Mothers’ Unique Interests and Preferences
Shopping for a Mother’s Day gift is not an easy task if your customers don’t have a specific idea of what to buy. This makes it hard for them to search or use your menu to find the right item.
However, if you provide alternate ways for them to navigate, it may be easier for them to find items that will be right for mom. For example, if they have an idea of her taste or style, you can create visual discovery journeys that help them find relevant products quickly by giving them an option to see similar items to any product image on the site.
You can also provide a visual search option, so your shoppers can, for example, upload an image of their mother’s favorite vase and find items similar to it within your stock. This gives them the confidence to know they’re buying something that aligns closely with her aesthetic taste even when they’re not 100% sure what they’re looking for.
Mother’s Day is a personal event that forms and reaffirms emotional connections with the people that matter most to your customers. To properly celebrate this time, your brand must deliver meaningful experiences that shoppers can relate to. For example, you can ask customers to share their favorite photo with their mom or of the piece of clothing that most reminds them of her. This makes for an emotional and engaging Instagram campaign, but it also creates user-generated content you can share on your site to inspire new gift shoppers and showcase your brand values.
5. Experiment With Innovative Personalization Tactics
Nothing beats the power of personalizing the online shopping experience. By choosing a personalization solution that focuses on your shoppers’ in-session behaviors, you can use each shopper’s context to help recommend the ideal gift and build a stronger relationship —both between your customers and their loved ones, and between your customers and your brand.
Another way to personalize the Mother’s Day online shopping experience is by creating quizzes to help your shoppers pin down what they’re looking for and what types of products their mothers would like. This way, in addition to collecting the data you need to make a spot-on recommendation, you are also helping your shoppers guide and refine their own searches and understanding of what to buy.
6. Look Ahead of Mother’s Day
Shopping doesn’t end on Mother’s Day. Like any other major gift-giving holiday, this is an opportunity to create customer experiences that will win over shoppers in the long term.
For shoppers who do manage to find the perfect gift, consider offering them a discount if they join your loyalty program on checkout. This way, you can stay in touch, as well as send over relevant discounts and product recommendations.
For those who don’t find something immediately, suggest they join your email list, so you can draw them back in in the weeks before Mother’s Day with new gift ideas.
As the world continues to combat the impact of the ongoing health crisis, having a memorable and special Mother’s Day celebration is a breath of fresh air that your shoppers deserve. With these tactics, you can be the brand that connects them with the right products and experiences that will delight the moms in their lives.