3 Gift Tips Even Santa Would Appreciate for a Stress-Free Holiday Season!

December is just about here; are you holiday-ready yet? For those of you trying to avoid last-minute gifting during an already busy time of year, you have come to the right place! Being your trusted Gifting Experts, we want to help you put the fun back into gift giving so we have outlined our top 3 Santa-approved gift tips for making a holiday gifting plan and a stress-free holiday season!

1: Timing is Everything

Being a luxury gifting business, we're sure it's no surprise to you that this is our busiest time of year. It is also the busiest time of year for shipping and courier services that can lead to delivery delays. Even if you are picking up your curated gift boxes, since every Black Bow gift is hand-made to order, your gifting timeline is the first thing you will want to determine.

If some of you usually don't start thinking about gifting until we are in December, think again! Not only will you need to consider shopping early to avoid delivery delays, you will also benefit from getting your top gift choices! The closer we get to Christmas, the more our inventory depletes. We are always happy to offer suggestions if we have sold out of your favourite gift or product, but shopping early means no suggestions necessary. Get the gifts you want and get them in time for the holidays by planning ahead.

Take special consideration if you are planning on shipping gifts elsewhere in Canada. Outside of the holiday season, shipping to certain provinces or rural addresses can take 1-2 weeks. That, plus the added volume of holiday shipments indicates that you will not want to wait until mid-December to start gifting.

2. Be Prepared

If you are having any difficulty finding the perfect gift, we are always here to lend a hand! Just know that we will always ask you for certain information before offering suggestions so we can only show you selections that we truly think your recipient will love. Having this information ready for us allows us to help you as efficiently as possible and will cut down the time spent emailing back and forth before we even start showing you gift options. 

The questions we will ask you are as follows:

• Do you have a budget in mind?
• Where is your gift going?
• Does your recipient have a favourite colour?
• What are their interests?
• Should we be aware of dietary restrictions?

Ideally these are all questions you should have an answer to before your start searching for the best gift for your recipient so if you don’t have these answers yet, we recommend you start there!

Did you know: Although we offer both Canada-wide and international shipping, gifts with alcohol cannot be shipped outside of Nova Scotia due to our alcohol permits. Don't worry, though; we have plenty of alcohol-themed products and even non-alcoholic beverages that will still hit the mark and feel both festive and celebratory!

3. Flexibility is Key

We've already said it, but we will say it again: the holidays are our busiest season! Although we love being busy, and are so grateful to our clients for keeping us busy, this does present some risk factors when holiday shopping. 

As we are currently a small business with no backup warehouse, we have limited inventory levels and once sold out, some of our products cannot be ordered again to have in time for Christmas. This is why shopping early is so important. If you had a particular gift or product in mind when you are reaching out to us, or browsing the website, you should know that our inventory levels can change rapidly. The combination of clients shopping our website as well as corporate clients determining their high volume gifting plans with our Corporate Concierge team could mean that a gift that is showing as in stock may not be available the next day, or even the next hour. All of our inventory is first come, first served so placing an order is the only way to secure the exact products you want. 

That being said, we will never leave you stranded! If you loved a gift or product that is no longer available, reach out to us! Our team of Gifting Experts is at the ready to suggest alternatives that can exemplify what you loved about your original suggestion. 

Flexibility is also key when it comes to selecting a gift you are shipping. If you have chosen a gift containing alcohol but plan on shipping your gift outside Nova Scotia, we will offer our best suggestions for a replacement while not altering the overall them of the gift. We will never change a gift without your direction and will always take photos of your designed gift boxes, or a pre-designed gift whose layout was changed to accommodate substitutions. We don’t think a product substitution has to be considered a runner up to your perfect luxury gift, but rather a beautiful and exciting alternative that you may not have thought of. 

Gifting isn’t necessarily easy but it definitely doesn't have to be stressful. With our pre-designed Holiday Themed Collection as well as our Design A Giftfeature on our website (and these gift tips), we hope you have a happy holiday gifting season! And, if you need any assistance from the elves here at Black Bow Gift Co, you are always welcome to reach out here.