A little Christmas shopping insight
December 14, 2009Here’s some insight from my other life, the one where I design and create work I sell directly to customers.
Last year, people weren’t much into gift boxes. Excess packaging wasn’t cool. This year? Just about everybody is saying yes. They’re spending less, for the most part, but they want the things they’re buying to be special. This year, a little detail like a gift box is important.
I suspect that customer mindset will stick around for a while.
That doesn’t mean dressing up a low-priced item with fancy packaging. There’s an old saying about silk purses and sow’s ears, and a good reason it’s an old saying.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you panic and drop your prices, either. You might be able to break a psychological barrier ($39.75 instead of $40.00, maybe, or breaking up services into smaller, more affordable pieces), but if a price is too low, the thing attached to it becomes cheap. You’re not selling to people who want cheap. You’re selling to people who want value.
People are thinking carefully about how much money they have to spend. They’re thinking about how they can find the best value for that money and still give a gift that will delight the recipient.
They’re getting it right without overthinking it: something thoughtful, that doesn’t break the budget, wrapped with care, because the recipient is important.
That approach should form the foundation of your marketing efforts.
That’s a really interesting context for marketing efforts; like a well thought out gift, marketing strategies are now much more thoughtful – I’ve found that small business are a lot more willing right now to hire a smaller, less well known freelancer if it’s a more personalized service – the marketing paradigm is shifting to that less flashy but still thoughtful and quality gift…I like it
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Stacey Cornelius Reply:
December 15th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
It’s encouraging, isn’t it – the shift to quality and the sense of community that comes from working with smaller businesses. Ironically, fewer resources (read: money to throw around) often leads to greater creativity. It’s really something, watching it all unfold. I wonder where we’ll be five years from now.
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I happen to enjoy that we’ve gotten back to infusing our gifts with sentiment by selecting quality wrapping paper or a cute gift box. We have (and I hope this lasts) moved away from buying each other’s love and respect.
I made my husband’s gift this year. But I’m going to admit right here that there will be no thoughtful wrapping. I’m spent!
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Stacey Cornelius Reply:
December 16th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Lydia, I think you have it covered
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