The US ecommerce market is officially in trillion-dollar territory. Forecasted to strike $1.34 trillion this year, there’s no slowdown in sight for this slice of retail. By 2029, more than 97% of consumers are going to be doing at least some of their shopping on the internet, so expect that sack of revenue to grow even fatter.
Not too long ago, ecom naysayers were everywhere, doubting the nation’s package delivery infrastructure or the ability for websites to even function properly, and the whole industry ate up less than 1% of the total retail sales in the US. Saying that the industry has some momentum in 2025 is an understatement.
The breakneck pace of ecommerce growth in recent years can be attributed to several factors. The user experience of online shopping is speedier and more intuitive than ever. Smarter marketing tools engage folks and lure them back to the checkout. Mobile-friendly experiences are the norm. And this streamlined customer journey is accomplished with the help of purpose-built tools (with Shopify’s App Store boasting more than 13,000 of ‘em on its own) that fine-tune every touchpoint.
That is, every touchpoint except for multi-ship checkout.
What is it, why are shoppers seeking it out, and is it time for your store to get on board? Read on and find out.
What Is a Multi-ship Checkout?
Multi-ship checkout is an ecommerce checkout with the capability to send products in one cart to multiple addresses in a single transaction.
Today’s consumers are leaning into ecommerce to meet more of their everyday shopping needs. Designer pants, diamond rings, groceries, big screen TVs, toilet paper — people are counting on their favorite online brands to deliver what they need, when they need it.
One retail category that’s becoming especially popular? Gifting.
Your average consumer, as well as corporate customers, are flocking to their favorite sites to buy and send thoughtful, intentional gifts to family, friends, employees, and partners.
There’s just one nagging issue, though. The average ecommerce customer experience isn’t cut out for that.
Shopify, the most popular ecommerce platform in the US with 30% of the market share, is the definite leader in this space. Shopify sets the standard for online shopping experiences, and yet there’s no easy way for stores running on the platform to set up a checkout designed for the shoppers who want to send their goods to many people at multiple addresses.
For obvious reasons, the typical online checkout is designed to give one person shopping for themselves the quickest, most convenient experience possible. The aforementioned apps have streamlined the whole process down to a single click in some instances, with things like address autofill and saved payment info often removing those steps from the purchase process.
When it comes to one person vying to send products to many people, though? Well, the customer experience quickly goes from quick and easy to long and frustrating.
The Customer Experience in a World Without Multi-ship
Picture it: The founder of a startup wants to send your products as gifts to her team of 25 folks working remotely around the US to celebrate hitting $1 million ARR over the weekend.
What does that journey look like for her today?
Does she have to go through your checkout 25 times to send these products?
And if she chooses that tedious and time-consuming route, is she able to include a gift note? Or does she have to order the gifts, then source 25 greeting cards on her own, write them, and mail them so they’re perfectly timed to arrive with each package?
Or does she have to ship 25 gifts to herself, find 25 boxes, repackage 25 items with the gift message, and pay for shipping again to 25 destinations?
After weighing her options down the self-service path, maybe she succumbs to your “corporate gifting” button down in the footer of your website. Once on that landing page, she fills out the form and waits 1 to 3 business days for a response. By the time she gets in contact with someone on your squad, coordinates the gift note, verifies addresses, and the gifts are processed and shipped, the Big Moment is weeks past and now the gift just feels…weird.
Not only that, this person probably sought out your online store because she’s had awesome experiences in the past and trusted your brand enough to share it with others. But now? This impossible purchasing journey has left a bad taste in her mouth.
What’s lost when brands don’t provide a multi-ship checkout?
If the only way you’re tracking your gift channel is through form submissions on your corporate gifting page, it’s nearly impossible to tell how many shoppers (both corporate and DTC consumer) are leaking out of your gifting funnel.
Although finding a dollar value for what’s lost when someone abandons their big ol’ gift basket is hard to pin down, there are some absolute losses when a multi-ship order is deserted:
- High-value order: Gift orders with multiple recipients are almost guaranteed to have a much higher AOV than an order for an individual.
- Positive customer experience: Today’s shoppers expect ecommerce brands to meet their needs, plain and simple. When a brand can’t provide an intuitive process for an increasingly common need, this creates a divergence between the positive CX they expected and the CX they received.
- Brand awareness: Gifting is the ultimate acquisition flywheel. When someone chooses to give your products to their friends and family, that’s free brand awareness from a trusted source. Getting your products into more hands at no cost to you creates new customers.
Multi-ship Opens up a New Ecommerce Growth Channel
Ecommerce is a tougher game than ever. That might sound a bit hyperbolic, but it doesn’t take much time shopping online to know that it’s true.
It’s no secret that shoppers have endless options at their fingertips, and it only takes one bumpy experience to send them clicking onto the competitor’s site. Since most brands don’t have bottomless pockets for acquiring costly new customers, doing what you can to retain existing customers and nurture long-term loyalty is the path to longevity.
Powering smooth, seamless multi-ship gifting experiences from your site isn’t just another box to check to meet customer needs — it’s an entirely fresh growth channel.
While every part of your ecommerce store has been tweaked, tuned, tested, and optimized, the gifting experience has been sitting on the back-burner. For decades (literally), ecom teams have been able to field and process the occasional corporate gift order or stray consumer gifting request while spending the bulk of time perfecting the classic shopping-for-myself DTC experience.
But just as consumers continue to evolve and expand the role ecommerce plays in their lives, retailers must follow suit. Brands that ignore the changing times, well, we hope they say “Sup!” to Geoffrey the Giraffe for us.
Give People the Power to Ship to Multiple Addresses and Grow
When your brand makes sending gifts to multiple people in a single transaction ridiculously easy, good things happen.
Higher average order values
When someone shops for themself, well, their basket size is going to be just for them, aka smaller. But when someone chooses to place a gift to multiple recipients with your store, that order will inherently be a bit bigger. Every gift transaction is the equivalent of three, four, or 30 individual DTC shoppers cruising through your checkout. Convert a few gifters a week, and it’s easy to see how quickly this channel can scale once a top tier CX is in place.
Repeat customer growth
An easy multi-ship checkout is uncommon in ecommerce today. Adopting modern gifting platforms like Zest to power your multi-ship checkout places your store ahead of the curve and meeting the needs of many. By differentiating with a seamless multi-ship experience, gifters will come to your store again and again for all their self-service gifting needs.
"I’ve seen people who are like, ‘Oh my god, this is great! I love this! It’s so much easier, I don’t even need to talk to you!’ And having Zest has had a really positive experience on our repeat customers. They send a gift once and come back to send different gifts to different people."
— Flora, Dandelion Chocolate
Increased brand awareness
Every time a lucky recipient unboxes a gift from your store, that may be the first time they’re learning about your brand. These recipients make up an entirely new audience of people becoming aware of your brand in one of the most positive experiences imaginable — and you didn’t pay a penny toward an ad to reach them.
Low-cost customer acquisition
When someone sends your product as a gift, it’s like the ultimate word-of-mouth marketing campaign. Recipients of these gifts are getting your goods from a trusted source, they’re using/smelling/tasting/feeling your products, and they’re now your hottest lead ever.
Luckily, tools like Zest enable brands to grow these new connections and engage recipients when they opt into marketing as part of the digital gift note experience. With just a friendly hello and a personalized follow-up regarding the gift they just unwrapped, well, you could have your next best customer on your hands.
Gift channel insights
Gifting has been a notoriously cloudy ecommerce channel. Unless someone goes through the steps to reach out to your team, it’s tough to parse which orders are gifts and which weren’t in your ecommerce backend.
With modern gifting tools in your tech stack, you can start to see the true impact of this lucrative channel on your bottom line. Unknowns like total total gift orders, gift revenue, and gift AOV become tangible data you can use.
Engage lists of gifters throughout the year with gifting discounts to stoke their return. Nurture gift recipients with offers for products that are the perfect accompaniment to the gift they opened. Speak to this entirely new audience like you’ve been speaking to your audience of DTC shoppers for years and scale this channel in a whole new way.
Is a Multi-ship Checkout Important? That’s a Big Heck Yes
Buying stuff online — including gifts — is here to stay. It’s a staple in the average consumer’s life, and now the battle is to get your brand to be a staple, too.
The majority of products for sale on the internet can be purchased from any number of websites. Your store’s most proprietary asset, undupable product, is the customer experience you provide.
When it comes to the growing cohort of high-spending gifters (who are basically screaming your brand name from the rooftops and vouching for how awesome you are with every gift sent), a multi-ship checkout is a must-have. It’s a key part of enticing and converting these shoppers, and it’s an experience they’ll remember.
Next time they have to pick between your brand and a competitor’s for the team gift, which do you think they’ll choose: the time-consuming, clunky checkout or the multi-ship experience that looks and feels as smooth and convenient as the ecommerce experience they know and love?
We’ll let you be the judge.
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