Gift Focus inc Attire Accessories - Page number 130 - November/December 2021

130 Jill Alexander, Head of Marketing Communications at UK Greetings, this issue’s guest blogger, looks at how to cater to last-minute shoppers T here’s no judgement here. We’ve all been there, the day before a birthday or even Christmas Eve, wondering what to buy and where to buy it. Last-minute gift buyers usually have a valid reason, of course. They may have a busy work schedule, wait until the final days in an effort to shop strategically, or just simply be classic procrastinators. But as a retailer, you don’t need to know why customers are leaving things until the last minute, just that they do. A study found that up to 40 percent of shoppers wait until the last minute to buy gifts, so anything you can do as a retailer to cater to these customers who are trying to make something work at the last possible moment will go a long way to creating a loyal and returning customer base. There’s a clear market for last-minute gifts, especially around gifting seasons. Google search data collected by UK Greetings found that searches for ‘last-minute gifts’ in the week leading up to Christmas were 1,027 percent higher than the yearly average. Meanwhile, gift- givers in Northern Ireland and Scotland were more likely to seek out last-minute gifts than their English and Welsh counterparts. But how do you make the process easier for shoppers, and in turn, maximise potential sales? Here are four ways to address this. 1. Invest time in providing online options for night-owls & panic-buyers Realistically, most stores can’t stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so for those shoppers that have left things to the last minute, make things as easy as possible to buy if they do happen to be doing their shopping at midnight! You can really cater to those night-owls and last-second buyers by making it easy to browse online. It saves valuable time not having to make their way to the high-street and battle through crowded stores filled with other stressed panic-buyers. Retailers can curate potential last-minute gift ideas for targeted markets by grouping items together by topic, season, or specific interest. For example, a retailer could amend their homepage’s featured items to suit the upcoming season, whether that be Christmas, Easter, or Valentine’s Day. E-tailers can set up collections online that offer customers similar suggested items. This is also something that can be translated to in- store setups, with specific displays, additional items at the till-point, and aisle endcaps. 2. Provide easy purchases & increased accessibility for non-personal gift buyers Making gift cards easily accessible both in-store and digitally can FINAL CALL