No matter what month of the year it is, Black Friday is always just around the corner ;) #ifyouknowyouknow

It’s never too early to plan ahead, especially if your holiday strategy involves new feature development.

Get a turkey leg up on BFCM with these tactics swiped from top ecommerce sites in 2023:

🎁 Gift finders

1. Try a Tinder-style gift finder

There are many ways to build a product quiz or “gift finder” experience, but it’s tricky to get them “right” because so many variables are involved — how many steps? How many options per question? What options per question? What questions to ask??!!

I love Swatch’s simple gift finding flow. Why?

😁 Yes/No options reduces cognitive load (don’t make them think — hard) 😁 Graphics add context to the question (with sample product matches) 😁 It’s short and sweet 😁 The copy is succinct 😁 It doesn’t interrupt you with a request for your email ;)

There are many ways to build gift finders — if you want some inspo check out these live examples: 🦄 Uncommon Goods | 🧸 Build a Bear | 🍐 Harry & David (mid-page) | 🧸 Melissa & Doug | 👗 Aritzia | 👕 Kohl’s | 🚧 Lego

2. Try a gift finder chatbot

Chatbots are everywhere - but they’re still experimental when it comes to gift finding.

If you try one out this year, make sure to make it clear that it’s a gift finder vs. a live chat widget — most customers will assume the latter, so it’s important to signal its gift-findiness with clear copy and an eye-catching image, like Chanel:

Chanel’s gift finder chatbot flow is simple and asks probing questions about your recipient. Play with it live here

3. Try “mad libs” finders

In the Mad Libs game, you fill in blanks within phrases. This approach has worked well as an alternative to forms and now, ecommerce product finders.

Try them on the home page like First Aid Beauty (swap product types with “recipient + interest,” for example):

Or embed them below product list results, like Drmtlgy:

4. Test dropdown pre-filter menus in home page banners

For Holiday ‘23, American Eagle Outfitters added sub-category links to its home page banner buttons to help customers narrow their options on the landing page.

If they worked well, we’ll see them back for ‘24 — but there’s plenty of time to test them before BFCM if you’re interested in stealing borrowing this idea.

Here’s another example AEO used post-holiday:

5. Try a Gift Finder CTA in the PDP Buy Box

If you’ve built a helpful gift finder, make sure to evangelize it everywhere. Visitors often enter via product pages instead of home / categories, so embedding a call-to-action in or near the Buy Box can help engagement — just be mindful of how placement impacts the Buy Button and other above-the-fold content.

Kay Jewelers baked a gift finder CTA into its Buy Boxes in ‘23. Will it return in ‘24?

6. Promote gift finders with in-grid banners

Another touchpoint to promote your gift finder is within the product grid — if you have the bandwidth, you can embed product-specific finders within key categories.

Sephora embedded a “Need gift ideas?” banner into its product grid in ‘23:

7. Consider gift finder CTAs in your typeahead widget

Adding content to your search widgets can be tricky — on one hand it distracts users from their all-important search task, but in the case of gift finders (which are a form of search) it may work well.

I don’t have a live example for gift finders specifically, but you can use your imagination here:

🚚 Shipping info

During the holidays, you can’t over-communicate information around order cutoff deadlines to arrive by December 24, fulfillment options and estimated arrival dates throughout the shopping journey

8. Link to a shipping cutoff modal from the promo strip

It’s a great idea to show the shipping cutoff in a top-line promo strip, but even better to expand details on-click/tap.

Backcountry’s announcement bar linked to shipping deadline info (with a bonus gift finder CTA inside):

9. Rotate inclusive holiday cutoff dates

Because Christmas isn’t the only holiday, including Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s and other winter occasions is a bright idea.

DSW’s banner rotated through 3 occasions, using different color treatments for added pop:

10. Promote a “Get it By 12/24” filter in product lists

If you fulfill from multiple warehouses, local stores or use drop-shipping, it’s a great idea to enable shoppers to filter results by what they can snag by Christmas Eve.

This is an advanced play, but Dick’s Sporting Goods slams with its “get it by 12/24” filter on category and search pages:

11. Feature holiday CTAs with in-grid banners

Victoria’s Secret slipped “See delivery details” banners into product grids for extra visibility:

12. Anchor link to delivery details on PDPs

Marks and Spencer features a “Christmas delivery” banner at the top of the PDP that anchor links to the Delivery tab without leaving the page (this would be amazing if the text-to-background contrast were fixed):

13. Show estimated arrival dates clearly on PDPs

A 2023 study by Maergo found 88% of shoppers want to see estimated delivery dates on product detail pages, and 53% rated this as “very important.”

But most sites cite delivery times in esoteric business day ranges.

Do customers a solid and provide estimated arrival dates clearly on the PDP — this goes a long way to reduce friction during the stressful holiday season, eliminating the need to dig for this information in the cart, checkout or customer service pages.

Cole Haan shows the arrival date in can’t miss green type:

Fashion Nova combines estimated delivery date with Free Shipping reassurance:

14. Show “Get it by [date]” with countdown timer on PDPs

Chubbies combines its free Standard delivery estimate with its shipping cutoff info in an easy to understand, real-time way on its PDPs:

Missguided shows a “get it by tomorrow” countdown timer, boldly:

🚗 BOPIS features

If you’re an omnichannel merchant, the clarity and UX of your Buy Online, Pick up In Store (BOPIS) features are critical during the holiday rush, as much of your traffic wants or needs this option.

15. Promote a “Get it today” (store pickup) filter

This tactic is trending and for good reason. American Eagle Outfitters draws attention to it by placing above other filters and accenting with a location-marker icon.

Clicking it pops out a simple zipcode lookup field:

Alternately, try a “Shop My Store” toggle, like Abercrombie (and let logged-in users save their Store Preferences):

16. Geolocate and pre-populate nearest store (for pickup filter)

Remove a step by pre-selecting the nearest local store. Just make sure to provide an override link (like REI, below):

17. Promote store pickup with in-grid banners

Duluth Trading’s animated banner reminds customers they can get gifts on time with curbside pickup, and includes text details below for the 4pm 12/23 order cutoff time:

18. Include “Order by X pm” for same-day pickup on PDPs

Because it REALLY matters during the holidays…

🍒 Low-hanging holly berries

19. Give special treatment to gift links in menus

This is a simple and underused tactic: add a little icon or colored text to your Gifts / Gift Guide collection in your header menus (desktop and mobile). Here are a few nice examples from holidays past:

20. Give your Gifts tab a sub-menu

Why stop at a Gifts link? Take the extra time to merchandise by recipient or interest to help direct customers to a more relevant set of suggestions.

The more relevant the suggestions, the shorter the discovery process and more likely the conversion ;)

Highlight them again on the Gifts collection with promoted banner/tiles:

21. Promote gifting-specific filters in Category pages

Alternatively, you can promote more general filters specific to gifting. “Under $X” are popular scopes, as are quick links to Gift Cards:

Just make sure your graphics look “clickable” and type and text-to-background contrast are user-friendly (these examples could be improved, but you get the idea):

22. Gift card banners

Duluth Trading reminds shoppers (especially late holiday gift givers) about gift cards, with quick-click access to purchase (and some whimsical copy to boot):

Patagonia makes its gift card promo pop by slotting it in negative space within the grid:

Daniela Draper slips an animated Gift Voucher CTA into its filter sidebar on desktop and mobile

23: Consider proactive chat to share holiday offers

Caraway used its live chat widget to expose its holiday offer tiers — the widget offers more space for details and is less prone to “banner blindness” than promo strips and site banners:

24: Tune search results for gifting cases

If past holiday search logs show trends such as “christmas gift for dad,” get ahead of it by merchandising results relevant products for the term.

Tip: Make sure at least your first page of results is optimized for the gifting case (using manual pinning or specific rules)

25: Tune autosuggestions for holiday cases

If you show suggested search terms or products in your search widget, consider boosting holiday related search terms, categories and products in November/December (including your Gift Finder link)

Check out the Search > Autosuggest section for more typeahead ideas

📩 Bonus idea: Try an e-gifting option

eGifts are physical gifts that you send electronically with just the recipient’s email address.

The merchant sends an e-Gift card-like experience to your recipient, and the recipient enters their preferred shipping address when they accept the gift.

The idea is gifts are only shipped and paid for if the recipient accepts the gift, it’s great for when you don’t know your recipient’s address or where they’ll be over the holidays.

Untuckit uses the Zest eGifting app to enable eGifting to individual gift recipients (GIF may take a moment to load)

Want more? Check out the Holiday ideas section on Ecom Ideas 💡