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Shopping for holiday gifts looks a heck of a lot different today than it did a couple decades ago. It seems like only yesterday that lengthy wishlists and shopping game plans were carefully crafted by way of TV commercials and massive seasonal catalogs plunked by the front door.
Weeks of circling gift ideas and clipping ads helped prepare gifters for driving from department store to department store in days-long shopping sprees.
For some, that scene might trigger some serious nostalgia. But for others, it sounds like the Stone Age of Christmas shopping. Well into the 21st century now, consumers have become accustomed to scrolling through every possible option for a product they want without ever leaving the couch. And instead of trekking all over town, their perfect purchases materialize on a doorstep within days (or even hours).
For giftees, it’s still the thought that counts when it comes to a gift they’ll love. But for folks buying gifts, striking a balance between convenience and authentic meaning is tops.
This evolution of how we shop for gifts happened hard and fast, and that’s not changing for the 2025 holiday season. So, when it comes to meeting the modern-day needs and expectations of your gift-hungry shoppers, which online gift wins in the world of gifting today — the omnipresent gift card or the more intentional gift delivered digitally? Let’s dig in.
Online Gifting Is on the Rise
If we learned anything in 2024, it’s that online gift shopping is continuing to surge in popularity, and more people than ever are choosing ecommerce to check off wishlists and deploy presents across the country to lucky friends, family, coworkers, and beyond.
But as convenient as online shopping is for today’s consumers, the only true major advancement in gifting since the dawn of ecommerce has been the digital gift card.
For consumers, these gift cards (typically delivered as a string of letters and numbers in an email) are a tidy reprieve for stressful last-minute shopping or when someone isn’t sure what to give someone. For brands, adding a gift card to their site is fast and essentially hands-free, aka, no one has to spend time talking with a gifter, working out details, collecting addresses, or thinking about customization in these gift transactions.
In short, the convenience of gift cards is in sync with what people love about ecommerce, and they seem like a big win for online brands, too. However, gift cards are undoubtedly a trade-off. What they have in convenience, they certainly lack in experience.
Handing out quick and easy gift cards doesn’t come close to the thrill of perusing products, writing a thoughtful gift message, and unwrapping something tangible. Instead of fostering a memorable moment, gift cards just kinda check a box.
Gift cards have been a fine catchall online gifting solution until now, but the uptick in online gifting isn’t just a coincidence. It’s a clear result of people from every generation wanting more meaningful, authentic interactions in their daily lives, especially when it comes to inherently sentimental moments like gifting.
People are eager to buy intentional gifts from their favorite online stores, and the brands that make that experience as easy as buying a digital gift card are poised to win.
So, Why Do Ecommerce Brands Stick with Gift Cards?
Gift cards are big business. It’s a growing industry that’s forecasted to surpass the $1 trillion mark globally by 2026, and they became the go-to gift with the dawn of the coronavirus pandemic. After all, people were still buying gifts, and a gift card’s flexibility and convenience fit the bill for what folks needed in a time of quarantines and isolation.
While they may seem like the ideal gifting solution for those who need something fast, all is not sunshine and butterflies in the world of gift cards. In the US alone, gift card recipients are hanging onto more than $21 billion in unspent vouchers and more than half of adults forget to use them altogether. Whether printed, plastic, or delivered digitally, gift cards are simply forgettable. Only 17% of Americans want to receive a gift card for the holidays, meaning 83% would rather have literally anything else — like cash, a tangible gift, or a fun experience.
Despite the steady rise of gift cards, there are signs that they could fall out of style in the foreseeable future. Most of that cold, hard unspent gift card money is held by millennials and Gen Z, telling us that younger consumers are less likely to use them. And in a recent survey, the top five gifts in America included tech, household goods, and jewelry, but not gift cards.
Gift cards may assuage the stress of frantic shoppers who aren’t sure what to buy, but they don’t live up to the meaningful moment that gifting embodies. And for ecommerce brands, all those unused gift cards can cause headaches and a mountain of liabilities. Even more, when a brand’s gift card is socked away in the nearest junk drawer, that’s one less customer relationship that can be built and nurtured into anything long-term.
Despite these lackluster qualities, gift cards have reigned supreme when it comes to online gifting. Why? The answer is simple: gift cards have been the only online gifting solution.
Until now.
The Digital Gift Card Alternative Shoppers Want in 2025
Zest is the online gifting platform made for modern shoppers searching the World Wide Web for similarly modern gifting experiences. Unlike a one-size-fits-all gift card SKU tucked away in your catalog, Zest empowers brands to give their customers the gift experience that meets their needs.
Your shoppers crave flexibility and options, and no matter how loyal someone has been to your brand, they’ll head somewhere else if you can’t meet their expectations in the moment.
Zest’s suite of gifting features meets the needs of people who want to:
- Send a gift and heartfelt message to one person.
- Send heaps of gifts and gift messages to many people.
- Buy a gift now and schedule it to send later.
- Deliver a digital gift instantly via email or link.
- Send a gift even though they don’t know the addresses of the recipients.
- Customize their gifts with a handwritten note or gift wrap.
- Send a gift with a printed gift note in the package.
Zest takes your store’s gift catalog and expands it from a single gift card to literally any product you sell. (It can even help your team with gift orders that are über custom with Concierge gifting.)
Each Zest-fueled frictionless gifting journey doesn’t end at clicking “Add as a gift,” though. Once clicked, gifters can add layers of personalization as they pick a digital gift note, write their own thoughtful message, and choose whether to send the note ASAP or later, like when the gift ships or when it’s delivered.
As for recipients, they get the experience of instant surprise and delight, digital unwrapping, and the chance to write a thank you note for the gifter.
It’s an experience that pulls in the giddy joy of picking out the perfect product and giving it to someone — much like the days of dog-eared catalogs and browsing store shelves — but in today’s ecommerce era. Gifters feel the satisfaction that comes with giving a thoughtful gift, and recipients get to enjoy a real product that won’t be forgotten.
The Zest gifting experience is the next evolution of online gifting, and it’s one that could help brands differentiate and sell more during the peak holiday shopping season.
The Impact of Zest Gifting vs. Gift Cards on the Customer Experience
As with in-person shopping, online stores that offer a better customer experience are going to see the most success. Ecommerce entrepreneurs are no strangers to the struggle of acquiring and retaining customers or how valuable the customer experience is in hitting those goals.
The first challenge is rising above the noise and earning a first-time customer’s business. The next (and never-ending) hurdle is trying to get that customer to come back. Recent research shows that providing a stellar customer experience encourages customers to return to your store, building essential customer loyalty. According to 3 Pillar Global, a leading digital innovator, more than 70% of shoppers say they are loyal to some brands, and more than 50% say that customer service influences that loyalty.
Loyal repeat customers are essential to your brand’s growth and stability. These people not only return to your store to shop again, but are likely to both spend more on return visits and pay more for a product than a new customer will. (And that’s verrrry good news for your bottom line.)
Creating a unique, supportive, and engaging experience has been a proven strategy for earning customer loyalty, and now Zest is ensuring your store’s gifting experience is up to snuff and scales your loyalty-building strategies.
Gift cards have their time and place in the ecommerce ecosystem, but current consumer trends show they’re pulling away from the alluring ease of gift cards and running toward more thoughtful, intentional gifting.
Many ecommerce brands invest hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in the customer experience. Email marketing, personalized ads, web design, product imagery, customer support — they’re all critical cogs in the overall experience that makes or breaks loyalty. Sticking with gift cards as the only gifting solution this holiday season could jam an impersonal wrench in the whole operation and sour an otherwise wonderful customer journey.
With Zest, ecommerce brands big or small have a way to remove the friction of gifting and render it a satisfying and memorable experience. In a time when it’s becoming harder to find and implement strategies that stand out, moving beyond gift cards could have a hugely positive effect on shoppers in the gifting spirit.
Zest Doesn’t Just Bolster the CX — It Provides a Clear View into Gifting
Zest offers more benefits than just a great customer experience and thoughtful gifting solution. On top of customer-facing gift features, its backend dashboard gives merchants real insight into the impact gifting has on their store.
Previously, if a sale wasn’t a gift card, a brand would have to assume the order wasn’t a gift. However, this could be distorting how much gift revenue is actually happening with a brand and clouding the true size of this growth channel.
With the right tools, brands can easily see how many gifts are sold, what those gifts are, who’s giving and receiving, and how many new customers have been gained as a result.
Plus, woven within the gifting flow are opportunities for gifters and giftees to opt into your marketing, which means you can even keep the relationship going well past the gifting moment.
Unlike gift cards that typically leave you with no connection to recipients, Zest turns every gift into a shot at acquiring a new customer. (After all, what is gifting but the ultimate word of mouth?) Take every shiny new gifting lead and trigger engaging, personalized sequences with Klaviyo or Attentive and watch your gifting channel turn into your hottest growth channel.
Give Your Customers the Gift of a Better Gifting Experience for the Holidays
Many stores offer the same gift card experience today (and only that experience). Customers have come to expect them, and they’re considered pretty standard fare. The same old, same old, if you will.
Turns out that “same old, same old” simply isn’t enough to stand out and compete in ecommerce today, especially around the holidays when the desire for an engaging, memorable experience is high.
This holiday season, step up your customer experience with an option that’s as modern as your store and your customers. With Zest, you can give your customers an easy, enjoyable, standout gifting experience they’ll love, while creating loyal customers who’ll want to return for that experience again and again.
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