Year after year, Americans have been tapping the internet to check off more from their shopping lists. Perceptive brands have taken note of this digital influx and responded with features that cater to continuously changing trends and provide stellar online experiences that keep them ahead of the competition.
Ecommerce started somewhat as a novelty, like a “nice-to-have” tool for the occasional eBay bid or textbook from Amazon, and many were skeptical it would ever take off. The experience was barebones and archaic by today’s norms, but it still managed to thoroughly weave itself into our collective day-to-day. Now, shoppers go online to order meals, buy groceries, get a new TV, stock up on dog food, and stuff their wardrobe. Roughly 30 years later, the average consumer couldn't imagine life without it.
In 2024, alongside clothing, tech, grub, and beyond, shoppers increasingly turned to online stores to scratch another type of retail itch — gifts.
Brands Leveraging Gifting Features Unwrapped a Big Opportunity
Zest is the only online gifting platform built for brands to use directly on their website, which means we get a front row seat to the strategies used by some of the web’s most popular brands innovating their gifting channel to meet demand and trends.
Millions of dollars’ worth of gifts were processed through Zest over the past year, and our roster of partners grew nearly 50%. More brands are catching drift of the $1 trillion opportunity wrapped up in the gifting industry, and they want in.
Sure, we may be biased that gifting is the Next Big Thing in ecommerce, but don’t just take our word for it. Our brand partners providing an easy gift-buying experience to shoppers are changing the game, especially when it comes to the holiday surge. Check out how some Zest-using brands did this past holiday season and a few of the tactics they used to sell more.
Hey! All the numbers and stuff you see below reflect the gifting activity between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2024.
Brightland
Founded in 2018, founder Aishwarya Iyer has taken her dream to foster togetherness, laughter, and conversation through food to epic levels. Brightland crafts borderline life-changing olive oil, vinegar, and honey that’s sat on as many kitchen countertops as it has “best of” gift lists.
In 2022, the team at Brightland managed a mountain of gift orders, each requiring a manual touch and lots of ad hoc procedures. “We got out of the 2022 holiday season and said, ‘We can’t do it like this again,’” recounted Alisha Stagg, vice president of strategy and operations at Brightland.
Long story short, Brightland found Zest in time for the 2023 holiday rush and just wrapped its second full holiday gifting season. Zest’s intuitive checkout, automatic address validation, gifting flexibility, and automated tracking updates save time and tedious labor both during and after the gift-buying process.
Vosges Haut-Chocolat
For more than 25 years, Vosges Haut-Chocolat has been reimagining what’s possible through chocolate. A coveted treat for many, Vosges has taken chocolate beyond tasty snack and transformed it into a vessel for opening minds, spirits, and palates.
The experience emboldened by each bite is a culmination of ingredients, flavor fusions, and artistic packaging. Every truffle, caramel, bar, and beyond fosters a memorable moment — making each gift of Vosges an eclectic experience for the recipient.
A Zest partner for two holiday seasons, Vosges Haut-Chocolat is able to extend its life-changing reach through flexible, modern gifting methods and a streamlined multi-recipient gift checkout fit for corporate clients and those simply spreading the good word of transcendent chocolate to friends and family.
.png)
Milk Bar
Since throwing open its doors in New York City’s East Village, Milk Bar has been baking up a new norm for the sweets scene. Founded by Christina Tosi, James Beard award winner and absolute icon, Milk Bar has made a big name for itself with nom-inducing desserts like the Milk Bar Pie, Compost Cookie, Cereal Milk Soft Serve, and “naked” layer cakes.
Aside from pushing flavor profiles and how gooey a pie can be to the absolute brink, Milk Bar has also innovated how its treats get into the hands of more hungry people. Milk Bar took its fare nationwide with easy online shopping and shipping, but over the past two holiday seasons, it’s leveraged another game-changer to its customer experience: streamlined online gifting.
In its quest to find an online gifting platform that would slash manual order processing and create an on-brand customer experience, the team at Milk Bar found Zest and has been able to cut gift processing time by 85%, increase year-over-year gift sales, and accommodate last-minute gift orders with ease.
.png)
Giften Market
Since late 2019, Giften Market has been supporting “artisan studios, small-batch makers, and emerging and underrepresented entrepreneurs” in its uncompromising effort to change gifting as we know it.
Founder Martha Krueger founded her thoughtfully curated gift box company to stoke intentional gifting while supporting greater goods, like small businesses and marginalized communities.
When Giften’s traditional processes — think manual form fields, phone calls, and laborious back-and-forth — started to bottleneck progress and the promise of joyful gifting, Krueger knew something had to change. That’s when she found Zest. For two holiday seasons, Martha has been saving time and growing sales with flexible, automated gifting processes that are also a joy to use for her loyal customers.
Dandelion Chocolate
For more than 10 years, the team at Dandelion Chocolate has been lifting up the craft of chocolate making to its highest form. With full-hearted devotion to letting the flavor of the cocoa take over tastebuds, their catalog is outfitted with toffee, gâteau basques, bars, truffles, and more that'll make your mouth water.
The team at Dandelion knows that good relationships are at the root of their quality chocolate. Their commitment to strengthening the bond with farmers and cocoa producers in each region they source from is the secret ingredient to crafting distinctive desserts.
Dandelion Chocolate has been innovating its processes since day one, and that’s reflected in their mission to make their bean-to-bar chocolate a go-to gift. With Zest in their tech stack, people can spread the distinct joy of Dandelion in just a few clicks without waiting times, bottlenecks, and back-and-forth. Gifting is now a process as smooth as their hot cocoa, and better tech has made their first holiday season with Zest a success.
Clif Family Winery
Kit Crawford and Gary Erickson co-founded CLIF BAR in the early 1990s and built it up to be the bar found in duffel bags, lunchboxes, and pantry shelves everywhere. In 2004, after an eye-opening trip overseas, the pair started Clif Family Winery to further explore and honor the delicate thread between food, wine, land, and people.
Fast forward a couple years to when Clif Family Winery innovated wine commerce by selling its wares online and the rest is history. Nailing the logistics of selling and shipping wine anywhere in the country opened up the company to new audiences — including looots of gifters.
With every evolution of its offerings, website, and customer support, Clif Family has kept people at its core. When gifting demand grew, internal manual processes couldn’t keep up, nudging the team to search for a solution that could fulfill every gift order without any whiff of a (wine) bottleneck. The 2024 holiday season was Clif’s second with Zest, and the growth they unwrapped is impressive.
Levain Bakery
Can you even remember the world without Levain (which is French for “leavened bread,” BTW)? Starting as a single cozy bakery selling loaves, baguettes, and rolls baked fresh every morning, it’s now a cookie institution that can be found from sea to shining sea.
As the brand proclaims, “Levain is love. It’s quality. It’s craft.” And that’s a truth that can be tasted to the last crumb. With a hefty cookie that’s somehow as crispy as it is gooey in hand, it’s impossible to not feel cared for — a sense that extends from Levain’s baked goods to its customer experience.
The team knew it needed an online solution that’d not only help people gift Levain with ease but would also harmonize with the brand’s inherent joy and care. This past holiday season was Levain’s first with Zest on its site, and it proved to be a partnership that rose to the occasion like a proofing sourdough.
Porter Road
Porter Road is the butcher shop bent on fixing the broken food system. Since 2010, co-founders Chris and James have been committed to the quest of quality meat and creating rural ag ecosystems across harvest and processing operations. Plainly put, Porter Road lives to give meat-eaters and farmers better options.
Eight years after opening up their shop, the duo expanded their brick-and-mortar store in East Nashville and set up a dot-com. This move meant embracing the excitement of offering pasture-raised meat to more folks from coast to coast, but it also meant facing new challenges.
From catering demands to a broader customer base, tackling wide-ranging support needs, and tapping into new channels like online gifting, the crew at Porter Road has been navigating wild growth. After pairing with Zest, Porter Road has been able to give its customers the swiftest way to send the gift of great meat in just a couple clicks and grow its gifting channel.
The Holiday Highlight Reel
Online gifting is growing, and leading brands are looking for ways to meet the growing demand with tools that align with their values, customer experience, and team.
By partnering with platforms like Zest, these brands are just a few that have been able to streamline their gifting processes, increase sales, and deliver customer experiences that are as delightful as the gift itself in 2024.
With the gifting industry projected to reach $1 trillion in the coming years, the brands that invest in the best gift platforms now will be poised to unwrap major opportunities and stay ahead of the competition tomorrow. The future of ecommerce gifting is bright, and these trailblazers are showing the way.
.png)
