With Shopify, you can now start a gift or gift box business with ease. Are you trying to sell personalized products or gift baskets that can be completely customized by the consumer, but aren't sure which CMS to use?

When it comes to creating a personalized gift shop, Shopify is one of the best options. Compared to bespoke website development or CMS like WordPress or Magento, selling personalized products on Shopify is more cost-effective.

The global market for personalized gifts is expected to reach $25.8 billion by 2020, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 7.7% between 2015 and 2020, which is faster than the 5.3% CAGR recorded between 2010 and 2015.

What is a custom giftbox business?

It’s a service where customers are able to create custom gift boxes along with other features such as product customization, shipping services, and more. It’s more than just the box but the content that’s in it. As everyone has their own preferences, you can allow customers to choose what products should go in the box. For example, if it’s for Mother’s Day, customers might want to include some flowers, chocolates, skincare, and other accessories.

Starting a gift box business right now can be an excellent way to earn extra income. While the core idea of personalized gifts is not new, you can create a unique business with this concept. By creating your own gift ideas, adding customization and offering additional services, you can provide specialized products to a niche market and increase profits.

The demand for unique personalization options surpasses the supply, making it one of the best gifting industries in the world.

Getting Started

If you are a shopify seller and planning to start a gift business, then you should know that the process is not as easy as it seems. Even if you think that you can simply sell your products on shopify and make a decent amount of money, trust me it is not as simple as it seems. It needs a lot of hard work, dedication and time to succeed in this field. And if you want to succeed in gift industry, then we have a few tips for you that will help you run your custom gifts business smoothly.

For the purpose of this guide, we’ll use the store, Happy Box Store as an example. Happy Box Store is an online gifting service where customers can create unique, custom gift packages for all occassions (be it a new baby, engagement, a new job or a divorce). They serve both B2C and B2B audiences, making gifting easy for everyone. 

1. Find Product Ideas for Your Target Audience

Trying to understand who your customers are is the first step of building a profitable business online or offline. For example: If you want to open an offline gift box shop with customized gifts, then it’s logical that your customers would be people who want to buy a gift for birthdays or anniversaries. Or if you’re a person who wants to start a B2B customized business, then you need to figure out what clients you’ll go for and what kind of gifts they would require. For example: If you want to target Corporate gifting they your clients would be companies like Google, Facebook, etc.

Once you know your target audience, it becomes easier for you to determine what kind of products you should sell.

Tailor-made or unique gifts have higher chances of success because they cater to smaller niche audiences and they will provide a great value to customers as compared to mass-produced items from big brands. 

The next factor is competition in your niche. You need to find out how many other businesses are selling similar products like yours. If there are too many competitors in your niche, it can be hard to get conversions.  You need to find out how many other businesses are selling similar products like yours. If there are too many competitors in your niche, it can be hard to get conversions.

Add other options

Add personalization options for these gifts according to the customer's preferences or interests by engraving names, initials or words on the item itself.

Continue building your gift box business by offering additional services such as engraving or customizing other products such as jewelry or clothing. Make it clear on your website what types of products you can engrave and customize and note any limitations if any exist.

Going back to Happy Box Store, let’s dive in a little bit into what they’re offering. They specialize in care packages so a lot of their items are custom curations from food to blankets, mugs and more. They also make sure to include a lot of local businesses which is great for promoting both theirs and that business.

From their curated gift box line, Happy Box Store offers boxes such as The Self Care Box which contains a bath bomb, essential oil and face mask–just what someone needs for a quick self care session. These boxes are great for those who don’t have the time to curate a box themselves or don’t know how to. It can also be good for customers who don’t know what items specifically their recipient wants.

They also allow customers to “build” their own box where ustomers can choose what gift box design they want then select what products to include.

Here are a few gift product niches that could serve as an inspiration for you:

Wellness Gifts: In light of the significant societal transformation in the recent year due to COVID, it is not surprising that self-care and wellness are now the most popular gift choices for any occasion. Google Search Trends reveals a 250% rise in self-care-related searches between 2019 and 2020. There are several products that you can include, spanning from appreciation journals to skin-care products.

Gifts for Gardening & Nature Niche: Gardening at home is in full bloom at the moment. In 2020, gardeners spent an additional 42% of their time outside in the garden. As a result, there has been an upsurge in the demand for gardening-related items among plant enthusiasts and plant parents. Personalized plant-themed mugs and t-shirts, gardening tools, and a gift bundle of seeds are all popular options.

Work from Home Gifts: Never has there been a more advantageous time to enter this business. Thanks to freqeuent lockdowns, more and more of us are working from home and to properly do that, we need to set up our home offices. Noise-canceling headphones, calendars, temperature-controlled mugs, DIY brewing kits, and more are some of the greatest work-from-home presents.

Gifts that Appeal Enthusiasts and Hobbyists: If you're passionate about something, you're more inclined to buy or give it to others who share your enthusiasm. You may start selling to gadget aficionados, cooks, fitness freaks, auto nuts, and a slew of other niches after you identify your target market.

2. Create Your Gift Business Plan

A business plan is a roadmap that helps guide you through the start-up process. It details all the steps involved in getting your business up and running, from organizing your finances to determining products and pricing. A successful business plan will help you to stay focused on your goals and build the right foundation for your success. Each step, like market research, product development, and marketing plan will add value to your business. 

Explore your niche by researching competitors' offerings and pricing strategies. Find out what customers are looking for in various seasons, such as Christmas or Valentine's Day gifts. Look at what gifts they give and what they prefer to receive. You can also use social media sites like Facebook to find out what people are talking about and what gift ideas are popular in different areas.

You can find free templates online for creating a business plan for your gift company, or hire an accountant or consultant to help you craft one.

There are many tools available online that helps you in planning your customized gift business. Here are few:

3. Develop your brand

In order to establish a successful business, you need to choose a name that describes what you offer or represent the overall image of your business. Consider the following aspects of your brand when creating this name:

The name you choose will be the one that you develop your brand around, which is why it is important to make sure that the name you choose reflects your business.

Once you have decided on a business name, you can start building your brand. Begin by designing a logo that can be printed on labels or used on your website and any other promotional materials. It's important to choose a design that represents your gift box business and one that customers will remember.

If we go by Happy Box as an example, one can easily relate it to what their product and service is. It’s a curated gift box service whose end goal is to make the recipient happy.

A good gift logo or gift box business name should include words that are related to the nature of your business and that set you apart from others in the industry.

The purpose of creating a brand identity is to create recognition in the minds of potential customers and repeat customers by maintaining a consistent image. Branding strategy is essential for any new business because it helps build trust with potential clients.

Consult your state's secretary of state's office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office to determine the availability of your chosen name. Register the business name with your state’s secretary of state office.

4. Choose Your Online Platform

There are many platforms available today through which one can create an eCommerce website. Some of the most popular ones that you can use for setting up an online business include Shopify, Bigcommerce, Opencart, WooCommerce and Magento Go.

We do recommend going for Shopify as it’s one of the most cost-effective options there is. Plus it’s very flexible and user-friendly. Shopify is also extremely scalable, which means that it can keep up with your growing business needs as your sales increase. 

(The Happy Box website is also hosted on Shopify)

It comes with various features like adding multiple products, shipping and payment option etc. Apart from these features, it also provides numerous apps which allows users to create their own website as per requirements. Since it comes with easy setup and easy features, it has become one of the most popular ecommerce platform over the years.

Make sure to set up features that don’t just help you out but also makes the shopping experience amazing for customers. Install features like different payment gateways for online transactions, add-to-cart capability, and wish lists.

You’ll also want to invest in informative product descriptions and clear photos of the products you’ll include.

It's a good idea to conduct extensive market research, examine your competition, and so on to define your features. This will assist you better understand what your consumers are looking for and what they want.

5. Choose Development Partner

Since your business requires some special features to really make it stand out, you’d need to have them developed. Just check out how Happy Box Store did there’s. They made shopping and curating a gift box really easy and in just 4 steps too. You can’t get this kind of design with just a template.

There are two ways to go about customizing your online store for your personalized gift business:

• Freelancers
• Agency

Each has its own benefit but as an owner of an agency (Webinopoly), we recommend going for a whole development team. When you decide to go with a development partner, you don't have to worry about the technicalities and can focus more on your business. They have the expertise required and years of experience in building retail websites for startups.

The next benefit of choosing a professional development partner is that they have more experience and this knowledge always helps. They know what works and what doesn't when it comes to building an online store.

Finally, freelancers have a tendency to fail or run behind schedule, but with an experienced development team you don't have to worry about this because they know what they're doing and how long it will take them to finish their tasks. When you choose a professional development team, they usually assign one person per client so that they can work on the project better and complete the task within the timeframe mentioned in the contract.

Webinopoly is a one-stop solution for everything you might need to take your business online. Our team of business analysts, designers, developers, and marketers can assist you at every step of developing a successful business. To save you the hassle of starting from scratch, we also provide a pre-built website option. We make building a custom website hassle-free so you can focus on your business.

Other Ways to Improve Your Giftbox Business

Offer personalization

Mugs, greeting cards, pillows, t-shirts, and jewelry sets are all examples of personalized presents that you can offer customers. You can perfect your personalised presents business based on the target audience such as how Happy Box segmented their curated boxes. They have boxes for WFH (work from home), for Valentine’s day, for bridesmaids, and more.

For their custom boxes, they also allow customers to send in a custom card to make it really special.

Whatever method you use for customizing your gift boxes is what matters most. Because when it comes to customization, people have various preferences. How can you accommodate their needs?

Imagine scenarios that could play out and how you will be able to address customer concerns. Make sure to take notes and have your developer come up with solutions that will benefit you and your customers.

Come up with an amazing marketing strategy

Deciding to start a custom giftbox business is one thing but making it successful is a different matter. The success of your business depends on how you market your products or services. You can make the most of Instagram marketing, Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, and other channels to bring in more traffic. However, it's important that you take full advantage of things like PPC and SEO so that you get more quality visitors.

Using Instagram to build an audience for your store is easier than ever. You can reach thousands of people with the help of influencers with just a few well-placed posts. Once you have built up the audience and engaged them, you can use targeted Facebook ads to drive sales.

Tailor your marketing efforts by creating personas for your target customers. This will help you better understand what your customers want and how they behave online. It will also help you improve your website and product pages based on their needs. This will increase conversions and sales.

CONCLUSION

In light of the above discussion, we can conclude that Shopify has positively changed the e-commerce landscape, and we want to help you do so too. Our team at Webinopoly is dedicated to helping businesses like yours succeed with personalized gift offerings.

Call us today to discuss how we can make your GIFTBOX business a remarkable success! Or contact us at https://www.webinopoly.com/contact-us/.