How good are you at giving gifts? According to a national survey commissioned by Etsy, 75% of Americans believe that being a good gift giver is important and shows someone how much they mean to you, but 64% think finding the perfect gift takes too much effort.
Now the $8.4 billion market-cap e-commerce company is rolling out a new product called Gift Mode to make it much easier to narrow down the more than 100 million things offered for sale on its platform. It’s also a strategy to differentiate itself in a world where almost every platform, whether it’s e-commerce like Amazon or media like Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube, presents users with the sometimes paralyzing paradox of choice.
“Giving a gift is the abbreviation of which brand?” says CEO Josh Silverman. “It’s hard to think of anyone. Etsy could be it.
Here’s how Gift Mode works: After you enter a few brief details about the person you’re shopping for, they can be categorized into more than 200 buyer personas. These people are tagged with names like Music Lover, Adventurer, Pickleballer and Pet Parent, and gift suggestions are tailored to their interests and personalities. You can then choose to create a personalized gift page for the recipient, including a gift note, tracking information, and even a sneak peek of the upcoming product.
The brand signaled its new direction late last year with a fun holiday campaign from agency Orchard; the ads were the perfect tribute, brazenly portraying Etsy as the ideal destination for a seemingly impossible task.
Gift Mode represents a major investment in both product development and brand marketing, leading to Etsy’s first Super Bowl commercial to air on February 1. Beyond the obvious reasons for the scale in advertising during the big game, this is an important opportunity to boost Etsy’s reputation among men, Silverman said. According to the survey, men think finding the perfect gift is just as stressful as paying their taxes, and even more stressful than turning off their phones for the day. 63% of young men panic about gift shopping. But while 76% of men are confident in their ability to buy great gifts for their significant other, only 37% of women are confident in their male partner’s ability to give a good gift. “No matter how nervous men are about giving gifts, it should be!” Silverman says.
This new product launch is the first part of the company’s investment in the gifting space, he says, and there are plans to continue iterating and improving Gift Mode’s capabilities in the coming months.
“The internet is full of gift guides that recommend the same things to everyone, so the goal was to also provide great personalized recommendations,” says Silverman. “It all starts with knowing one thing about them.”