What was the holiday shopping season like before ecommerce existed?
If you’re an elder millennial or older, you may have memories of chunky catalogs piling up on your doorstep in the months preceding Christmas, ready for anyone and everyone to start circling wants, making wishlists, and clipping coupons.
The hours spent researching gifts, making a plan, then transversing from store to store in an endless march, unsure if your dream gifts would even be in stock.
Since the inception of ecommerce, though, holiday shopping looks a bit different — and not just for shoppers.
Online brands have to face constant competition from new brands, ever-changing marketing tactics, and a shopping window that’s been steadily expanding for years.
The holidays before the internet were, in a way, more predictable and consistent for both consumers and companies. The kerplunk of the catalog signaled the start of the season, shoppers patronized their select stores, and then the season wrapped up by New Year’s Ever.
So, how can ecommerce brands come out on top despite constant change? How can brands compete when strategies to get in front of more shoppers aren’t as clearcut as printing a catalog and running a TV ad?
As gifting pros, we have some tips for eternally adjusting to the ecommerce holiday season and how you can maximize your seasonal sales (and cruise into the new year on the best note ever).
How the Holiday Shopping Season Has Stretched Over the Years
JCPenney has been a cornerstone retailer in the US for more than 120 years. While the company peaked in the 1970s, it’s been lingering on lists of top apparel shops for quite some time. This is just one of many longstanding brands that has given its fair share of innovation to how and when we shop, including the aforementioned catalog.
JCPenney’s Christmas Catalogs used to top 500 pages, easy. Since the 1960s, the store’s stuffed publication had been a staple in setting the tone and timing of the holiday season. These catalogs used to start deploying at the end of August so that pretty much everyone in America would have one in their mailbox by early October, and that’s when people planned to start their shopping.
Department stores were go-to gifting destinations pre-internet, and the pattern they set year after year was predictable. Receiving a catalog was a sure sign that promotions were soon to follow, with Black Friday sales providing a huge incentive to get out a shop for gifts during the main event of the season.
The span between Black Friday and Christmas was dotted with decent (but less impressive) sales, and everyone returned to business as usual by the year’s end.
But today, holiday shopping has stretched far beyond the confines of catalog delivery and Black Friday blowouts. In 2024, roughly one-third of US shoppers planned on starting their gift buying between July and October — a shopping window that would have been downright bonkers just a couple short decades ago.
What was once a tidy timeframe for holiday purchases is now a rollercoaster of one-day promotions to week-long sales events that pop up throughout 6 months of the year.
The majority of people still plan to wrap up their gift purchases in December, but the starting line for holiday shopping has surely moved further away from the finish line each year.
Similar to how mega stores like JCPenney dictated the season, the behemoths of ecommerce have similar (if not more) sway today when it comes to the ebb and flow of seasonal promotions.
Amazon Prime’s Big Deal Days unofficially moves seasonal shopping to start in early October, as does Target’s Circle Week, which is more prominently advertised as a holiday shopping kickoff. These retail giants are setting the tone, and probably with more than 500 pages worth of treasures.
Even though major forces in the ecommerce industry are the ones setting expectations year after year, these trends can only persist if there’s a positive response from consumers. And it turns out, shoppers like the wide open window of holiday shopping.
Especially in with today’s economy — inflation, threats of a recession, employment uncertainty, loan repayment, and beyond — consumers are happy to spread out their spending over months instead of emptying their wallets and then some in a short period of time.
With the climbing popularity of ecommerce brands for holiday shopping (one in five people plan on increasing their online shopping this season) coupled with the swelling demand for more sales spread out over longer periods of time, the truth is that the typically snug “shopping season” of yore is being blown open.
Online brands should reset their expectations going forward and anticipate “extended and atypical” seasonal retail calendars. At first, this may have people asking, “What’s the point of doing anything special for the holidays?!” but what this changing seasonal trend really is is an opportunity for you to extend your own holidays sales and capitalize.
Tapping the Opportunity to Expand Your Ecommerce Calendar
Before recently, holiday marketing was a lot like shooting fish in a barrel (bear with us). Think of it: The seasonal shopping timeframe was short, and shoppers were primed and ready to cram it all in. They were champing at the bit for your deals and steals, all you had to do was unleash them on your audience!
But today? Today you’re facing a longer shopping period beyond classic Black Friday or the Cyber Five. You’re trying to entice more discerning shoppers. And your online presence has more competition each and every year.
Like everything in life, consumer behaviors have changed. This means that your ecommerce brand also needs to make a change. This year, let’s shift the focus from easily converting customers who are ready to buy, buy, BUY during Cyber Five to shoppers that have an early shopping mindset. Appeal to those who are seeking a regular cadence of deals over a longer period of time versus those who are checking of their whole gift list on Cyber Monday.
The number of people who started their shopping in July in 2024 is 6% higher than it was in 2023 — a percentage that’s going to keep growing. Instead of clinging to the holiday calendar of years past, it’s time to rethink seasonal marketing, offers, and experiences in order to fully meet the needs of the changing consumer.
Why Zest Gifting Is a Must-have for Changing Holiday Trends
Modern shoppers have gifts of the mind most of the year. They’re leaning into ecommerce more and more to seek out, research, and snag gifts well before Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or the whole Cyber Five stretch is on their radar.
So, how can your store grab the attention of these early gifters? One solution is Zest, the first-of-its-kind gifting platform made for ecommerce brands looking to grow their gifting channel.
When the holidays start creeping up, many brands advertise things like site-wide discounts or limited promotions on select items. If you think of this approach as if you were running a brick-and-mortar store, it’s like sending a shopper into the big box building and leaving them to hunt for gifts on their own.
Not only might some prime gifts get totally bypassed because they weren’t looking in the right spot, but it’s also extremely time-consuming.
Zest fixes this friciton by giving ecommerce brands the tools to quickly set up entire storefronts stuffed with only their best gifts. Instead of scrolling thousands of SKUs, gifters have a dedicated place to go to peruse gift kits, bundles, and personalizable options.
On top of a centralized gifting hub, Zest-powered storefronts cater to gifters with features like:
- E-gifting and Physical Gifting
Shoppers can choose between having their gifts shipped to directly to lucky recipients or surprising their recipients with a digital gift unwrapping experience. With e-gifting, shoppers can send gifts via text, email, or link without needing to know a single address — recipients fill in the deets (and can even write a thank you note!). - Gift Personalization
Zest knows the most powerful part of a gift is the gift note. In this gifter-centric experience, shoppers can write personalized gift messages that are either sent as part of the e-gift experience or printed out and slipped into gift packages shipped directly. - Gift Scheduling
People who shop for presents year-round can snag a great gift or discount at any time through a brand’s Zest gifting storefront. While gifters have the newfound option to deliver gifts instantly when they choose e-gifting, they also have the luxury of scheduling their physical or digital gift deliveries far in advance. Set up a “Christmas in July” gift shop full of steeply discounted gifts, spotlight your gift scheduling superpower, and meet the needs of shoppers looking to spread out their holiday spend. - Multi-recipient Checkout
Typically, buying gifts for a few people online means having to go through the checkout for every single recipient. Depending on your gift list, this could mean spending a lot of time going through the worst part of the ecommerce experience. With Zest on your site, gifters can just as easily send gifts to 100 people as they can one person. With a fast address uploader baked into the experience, gifters can send gifts to as many people as they need in one checkout transaction. - Automatic Gift Tracking
With Zest, your gifters will never wonder again if their surprise ever made it to their friends, family, or coworkers. Instead, they'll be fully in the know as tracking updates get automatically sent to both the gifter and the recipients for some much-needed peace of mind (and way fewer “Where is my order?” tickets bogging down your support team).
This digital-first experience resonates with the increasing number of online holiday shoppers while giving brands the ability to match changing needs and stretch their holiday gifting window.
Meet the Needs of Modern Holiday Shoppers With Zest
While you may never be able to fully replicate the innate peace of quietly thumbing through a classic 500-page holiday catalog, opening up a gift-stuffed Zest storefront is a pretty close second.
Modern shoppers are spreading out their holiday spend and hunting for gifts throughout most of the year. When your online shop gives them a digital-first experience lets them browse, personalize, and schedule gifts, you’ll be able to tap into this booming group of consumers and maximize your store’s holiday sales.
