Are your Gifts (as)Sorted?

If your gift wall still looks like whatever you grabbed last spring, you're not alone. As we were recapping August performance, we found ourselves discussing a common issue among our retailers. From clients saying “I have a cart going but I’m stuck” or “it’s on my list…”, holiday gift assortments are coming up in every meeting.

The Category with the Most Upside

Owners don't know what to buy, and it's outside their expertise. Our apparel-focused owners are so deep in their usual products that gifts fall by the wayside. They excel at knowing their core customer, but there’s a knowledge gap when it comes to the gift wall.

We’re hearing that customers are asking for things like teacher gifts or a great last-minute find for birthdays or dinner parties that don't map cleanly to what the store normally carries.

From Category to Collection

Gift can be the highest-traffic, highest-impact sections in the store, especially in Q4. Customers walk in without a plan and walk out because something told them exactly who it was for. That's the real shift happening right now among the retailers doing this well: they've stopped buying gifts as a category and started buying gifts as a collection.

Buy for Her

The fix is knowing who you're buying gifts for — without a customer profile in mind, the assortment can feel random and disconnected from the rest of your shop. Instead of asking "what gift items do we need," the sharpest assortments start with a customer.

Say it's the luxury lover. She wants things that feel personally sourced — collected, not bought — pieces that are unique, special, and carry a story. Once you know who you're buying for, the choices become clear.

Curated for the Luxury Lover

Expand your Resources

We're hearing the same thing across almost every store right now: the appetite for gifting is there and the budget has been allocated. What's missing is the bandwidth to actually go find the right pieces, from the right vendors, in the right window before the holiday clock runs out. Curating a gift assortment well takes time most owners don't have during the busiest stretch of the year.

If you need support with your gift assortment this season, ask about our holiday sourcing package.