No two months are more universally associated with gifts than December and February. It is perhaps unfortunate that sandwiched between them is January which is associated with lean pockets. We can agree that these months represent the gifting season. If you would like to capitalise on the gifting season here’s a list of some of the best ideas in personal gifts that you can include in your business.
Games
Games make great gift ideas. Particularly board and multi-player games that bring people together. Classic games like monopoly always work but there are many more. One expression of this business idea that we’ve seen is offering local context to such games. Zimopoly (Zimbabwean monopoly) and Zim seconds (Zimbabwean 30 seconds) are two examples of doing this very well. Whether you’re thinking of stocking games or creating that’s a good place to start for gift products.
Diaries and planners
Looking at the new year people would also appreciate diaries and/or planners. These are useful to people who are serious about planning their years or activities. They make great ideas because you can purchase ready-made ones or go for branded ones. They are often used as corporate gifts but they make wonderful personal gifts too.
Plants
Plants are a very popular gift item. Of course, the plants themself make good gifts but the pots that they come in make a big part of the package. The focus here is of course indoor and outdoor that reside in pots. They vary widely in sizes, prices and flexibility with pots. You could also look at selling accessories and consumables for the care of plants. These are high margin products in most cases so you can find them very good personal gift business ideas.
Gift Vouchers
Vouchers are incredibly underrated gift ideas. They are perfect because the recipient gets to choose what they want to do with the amount allocated to them. They also take a lot of guesswork out of finding the perfect gift while making sure the recipient gets the perfect gift. It’s a real win/win. As a business, you can offer gift vouchers for specific products or valued to certain amounts. This means that whatever you sell you could make gifts out of it.
Subscriptions
The world has shifted to subscription services for many things. We don’t buy music anymore, we subscribe to Spotify and Apple Music. We now get our fix of movies and series via Netflix, Amazon, Apple Tv and before that DSTv. So gifting subscriptions sounds like a good idea to me. For the international services, Zimbabwe has some payment problems to navigate so subscription vouchers wouldn’t just work in December and February but make great gifts all year round. There’s a subscription service for just about anything out there.
Books
Books are and always will be a hot gift item. People who love books love books. Technology has added a beautiful dimension to this with ebooks and audiobooks becoming fully mainstream formats too. Books like other popular culture items are also trend-based so you’ll find within certain communities some books will be hot property towards the year-end or beginning of the year. Providing these books or vouchers for these books makes a great business idea if you’re already plugged into these communities.
Electronic gadgets
This is a really wide world and our friends over in China are doing a lot to help us with this. Electronic gadgets aren’t just for flashing they do add a lot of utility and convenience to people’s lives. That’s what makes them such great gift items. You can provide the latest and greatest electronic gadgets. The beauty of this as a business idea is how wide the range of products are. Smart speakers, wireless earphones, smartwatches, air fryers and so many more. You just have to be tapped into the trends to see what could be in demand as a gift.
These are some personal gift ideas that would work well as business ideas. With some you could make your while with others you can source them for customers.
