Ring in the Season! 🎁

As we near the end of the year in a whirlwind 2020, the time of scrambling to buy gifts and presents is back again. With the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, we will be scrambling for them in front of our computers and mobile phones. According to Deloitte’s forecast, eCommerce sales during the holiday season will be growing by 25-35% YOY compared to 2019’s 14.9% and is expected to generate up to $196BN this season. This however is expected to put a strain on the volume of packages that will need to be delivered and 700M holiday packages already could potentially be delayed even before they are sent. 

Source: Man Crates

To think early, we took a look at a wide range of gift-giving businesses. 

• Gift Tree.com is a gift basket seller headquartered in Vancouver, Washington that offers gifting of food and wine baskets was founded in 1997. 
• Harry & Davids which was purchased by publicly traded gifting service 1-800 Flowers in 2015 is one of the traditional gourmet gift basket services that grew from their signature Royal Riviera pears. It dates back to founding in 1934. 
• Stonewall Kitchen will help you gift a stocked pantry of pancake mixes and jams (amongst other things) for the holiday season. Headquartered in York, Maine, the company was founded in 1991 expanding from jam and jelly selling at local farmers’ market to a successful line of products today. 
• Man Crates is, as its name hints, a gift-basket company aimed at gifts for men. Founded in San Mateo, California in 2011, the company sells items ranging from jerky, BBQ sets, ale-making kits, to personalized sports gear and more. 
• Dylan’s Candy Bar, headquartered in New York, NY, offers gift baskets for the sweet tooth. Aside from their bright stores at many airport locations, they have an array of candy baskets perfect for year-end gift-giving. 
• Edible Arrangements was founded in 1999 in Wallingford, Connecticut, and is famous for its fresh fruit bouquet that can be delivered to your doorsteps. The products are made by their 1,200+ franchised locations to guarantee the freshness of their products. 
• Etsy, itself is not a private company but does give access to thousands of small businesses offering gift baskets of all types. And with face masks being the number 1 gifting option of 2020, Etsy has sold 24M masks in the September quarter doubling its revenue from a year ago.