Developing a Product That’s Likely to be Purchased as a Gift: 7 Key Points to Keep in Mind
The market for gifts is vast, and it’s common for products to be developed specifically to target it, as the payoff for succeeding can be significant.
Of course not every would-be gift is a hit, so what are the things to keep in mind if you want yours to be a hit?
Who’s the intended audience?
Whether you’re aiming to sell homemade crafts or intending to create the next smash hit toy, you need to consider the audience for your product first and foremost.
Market research will let you build customer profiles, and will also give you a sense of the competition that’s positioned in the same niche.
What’s the right price point?
Pricing is important regardless of the product, but with gifts it’s even more pivotal. This goes double for subscription services, which are increasingly popular in a gifting context, and have to be carefully costed out to ensure they are both appealing to customers and profitable for your company.
Where will it be produced?
Outsourcing the manufacturing of your product often makes sense, and it’s something that even the largest brands do. But that means making sure you build relationships with the right suppliers, and also ensure that your design complies with regulations in whatever territory it’s going to be available in.
Who’s the gift giver?
The person giving the gift is just as important as the person receiving it from a product development perspective. And it’s not just consumers who clamor for high quality gifts, as businesses are also heavily involved in this scene.
This means you need to look into corporate gifts if you intend to grab a slice of this market, where there are different needs and expectations to those of individual buyers who’ll be giving to a friend or family member. Convenience is key here, and there are even digital gifts for employees available, which might give you inspiration for your own virtual goods and experiences.
What’s your brand identity?
Getting branding right is tricky, and when it comes to developing products to be purchased as gifts, there are different things to think about compared with other everyday items.
Approachability is more relevant in this context, for example, and you might want to make your products pop on the shelves to a greater degree through the use of packaging design.
Of course your brand identity also has to suit the product, as a mismatch here can be devastating. Customers who purchase it as a gift once won’t come back a second time if the recipient is disappointed in what they unwrap.
How will it be sold?
In the age of ecommerce, it’s not a given that your product will end up on retail store shelves whatsoever. If that’s the case, then the design and the packaging, as well as the marketing, need to be built around making sure it connects with customers who are doing most of their shopping online.
How’s it going to be used?
Some gifts are opened up straight away and enjoyed there and then, while others are appreciated before being placed elsewhere, or stowed immediately by the recipient for transport.
So there’s a difference between a gift that’s designed for being handed out at an industry event, and one which is going to be unboxed on December 25.
Where, when and how it’ll be used must be taken into account, or customer satisfaction might suffer and your costs will rise.
Wrapping up
There’s a lot involved in transforming a product concept into a tangible gift, and rushing your latest project to market is never the right choice. A more considered approach to development, on the other hand, will pay dividends.