Godiva’s “How do you holiday?” gift guide is a content winner on all counts. It’s fun and interactive, and acknowledges that sometimes, shoppers want to get a little something for themselves. To help, this quiz guides customers through three simple but festive questions to determine their true holiday “vibe.” And with integrated quickviews, shoppers can purchase the featured chocolate items instantly, without wasting precious time scrolling through category pages.
La Vie En Rose
This digital experience is a beautiful example of gift guides done right. Bright graphics and rich photography bring the page to life, and quickviews create a fast and seamless path to purchase. And we love how easy it is to navigate to the brands’ other holiday gift guides, keeping customers exploring the website. Shoppable experiences like these make holiday purchases easy, giving shoppers one less task to worry about during this busy season.
Gift guides that take the stress out of holiday shopping, while making the experience engaging, stand out to us. Reebok’s experience does just that. It’s richly visual, with bold graphics to keep the shopper engaged with the content. And the sliding carousel format lets shoppers switch between workout personas, making the page easy to navigate. But what really takes this gift guide to the next level is its instant shoppability. Simply click an item to activate a quickview and immediately add the product to your shopping cart, then exit the lightbox to return to the experience. For a holiday shopper who is in the inevitable time crunch, instant shoppability is a must.
Turn5’s Holiday Gift Garage experience succeeds because it presents a wide variety of options, while still remaining highly curated (and therefore easily digested). Customers can shop by price or by the personality of the car’s driver. From “The Speed Demon” to “The Show Stopper,” there’s something for everyone. And by including clickable sliding carousels and animations, the experience is both engaging and dynamic. As a final touch, Turn5 includes shopper reviews and team bios to establish that all-important brand connection.
We love how fun and interactive this experience is, perfect for a brand whose audience is comprised of children and their parents. A graphical Christmas tree takes center stage in this experience, with clickable ornaments that activate quickviews for instant shoppability. And for the shopper who’s in a rush, they can simply click the bow on top of the tree to activate a lightbox with every product featured in the page. It’s a thoughtful touch for a stressed-out mom or dad. The experience is whimsical and instantly shoppable – a perfect combination for a holiday buying guide!
It’s easy to forget that holiday shopping goes beyond the standard gift exchanging. Customers also have opportunities to shop for themselves, and retailers that acknowledge and facilitate this are likely to get ahead. A great example of this is New York & Company’s holiday dress boutique experience. What makes this experience so successful is how it capitalizes on a universal event: the holiday party. This buying guide makes it easy for women to find the perfect dress, and discover styling inspiration in the process. With integrated quickviews, customers can quickly add to cart without ever wasting a moment scrolling through a product grid.
Holiday experiences shouldn’t make shopping feel like a chore; to stand out from the standard online process of scrolling through product grids, experiences should be fun and engaging. With this objective in mind, Ellen Hutson’s holiday gift guide is a complete content home-run: it’s delightful, interactive, and instantly shoppable. Featuring embedded educational videos, integrated quickviews, and a personality gift-guide quiz, there is something for everyone in this experience. And because there is so much to explore, shoppers remain on the page, boosting engagement metrics.
Holiday shopping can be overwhelming – there are so many options to choose from, it’s easy to be stricken with choice paralysis and leave a retail website altogether. Holiday content should make it seamless for a shopper to select a gift their loved one will be sure to love, and avoid the dreaded buyer’s remorse. Annie Selke’s gift guide does just that. Shoppers simply take a fun embedded personality quiz to access a curated collection of products for everyone on their list. From “The Modernist” to “The Spa Lover,” there is something for everyone, taking the guesswork out of holiday shopping. And because the experience is interactive and engaging, shoppers are sure to stay on the page. We especially love how this experience gives customers the option to do a little holiday shopping for themselves!
One of the biggest differentiators your holiday content can provide is instant shoppability. Customers complete their holiday shopping online for a reason – they don’t have time to fight their way through mall crowds. They want to get their shopping done quickly and painlessly, and the best way to deliver this is through integrated quickviews. Bonmarché’s holiday lookbook is a great example of this. Shoppers can click through the experience at their own pace, and the moment inspiration strikes, they simply click to activate an eCommerce-enabled lightbox. And because they aren’t taken to a separate page, they can remain in the experience to continue shopping.