I debated weather or not to offer gift wrapping services for my little shop. Who would want it? You’d be surprised!
According to Consumer Reports polls americas typically devote around three hours to boxing, wrapping, taping, and tagging their gifts, but most brick-and-mortar and online retailers now offer the service to their customers. Wrap up your profits and offer gift wrapping to your customers!
Why Offer Gift Wrapping
Many of your customers are buying gifts for friends and family. Why not add gift wrapping to your listing?
Let’s face it, shopper are busy. Offering them gift wrapping services will set your shop apart from the completion if you do it right. Customers will remember the shop that saved them time and effort when gift shopping.
Setup for these services in Etsy is a snap with just a few clicks so read on. You can make your shop more desirable to a new potential buyer.
The 2 Etsy Services You Can Offer
When your customer is buying a gift for someone from your shop you can have two options available for your listings. See below for a breakdown of the two services you may choose.
1. Gift Wrapping
You can easily setup your shop to offer gift wrapping. It’s a nice touch for the customer to be able to select this option when purchasing from your shop. As you may know many of the items on Etsy as purchased as a gift especially during the holiday season.
A few KEY FUN FACTS to understand on Gift Wrapping:
- You set your own price for gift wrapping in your shop.
- Once you add the setting: Your gift wrapping will appear on ALL of your listings ( with the exception of digital products) Once you check the feature it will apply to all your listings currently in your shop and in future listings.
- Buyers will be able to add gift wrapping at checkout.
2. A Personalized Gift Message
Personalized gift messages are always free for the buyer. Why not setup this option? Sometimes the item is going strait to the person getting the gift. Having the option of adding a personalized gift message sent to the recipient is a nice service.
A buyer can type in their own personal message at checkout.
How To Enable Your Shop: A Click Away
Offering up gift wrapping and gift message services is very easy.
- On Etsy, click Shop Manager.
- Click Settings.
- Click Options.
Gift wrapping
- From Options, scroll down to Offer Gift Wrapping.
- Select Enabled.
- Enter a Price Per Order for your gift wrapping services. NOTE: this will apply to all orders in your shop.
- Optional: Upload a sample photos of wrapped package.
Gift Message Services
- From Options, scroll down to Offer gift messages.
- Select Enable.
The buyer can add in a gift message when they checkout. As the shop owner you can opt to either print out the message and place it in with the package or for a personal touch you can hand write into out on a card.
Buying Note Cards:
You may have blank notecards on hand. I have regular thank you cards I send out to all my customers. I do like to have blank all occasion cards on hand in case a customer would like me to write a personal note. The ones I purchase on Amazon are these floral notecards. There are almost 50 in a pack and I find that will get me through the holiday season.
NOTE: As long as the buyer marks the item as a gift the price of the order will not be displayed on the printed invoice.
What To Charge For Gift Wrapping
What to charge is completely up to you. After some targeted research The Etsy Sellers handbook suggest that $4.00 US seems to be the sweet spot for gift wrapping.
Myself I charge just $1.00 per order as I love to wrap gifts and I am able to custom stamp my paper and use cutouts for cards keeping the cost low. I tend to also buy my paper in bulk.
If you find your items are mostly small that will allow you to keep the cost of wrapping low. Consider the $1.00 price point on small items.
Create Your Wrapping Station
Next to my shipping station I do have a small table set aside for gift wrapping. If your setting up your wrapping station here are a few key items you will need.
You will not need All the items below but here are the supplies I order to be ready for the holidays. The $1 per gift wrap more than pays for the supplies here. You make have some of these supplies on-hand as well.
- Colorful tissue- LOVE this gold tissue. This is a great price for what you receive. (Click here to order on Amazon)
- Double-sided tape. I like this brand as they sell in a bulk at a decent price. (Click here to order on Amazon)
- Ribbons (Click here to order on Amazon)
- Colorful twine (Click here to order on Amazon)
PRO TIP’S: Discover the magic of double sided tape. This will leave your wrapping clean looking and makes it double fast to wrap. Lastly, consider buying your gift wrapping supplies in bulk to save money.
The Wrap Up (pun intended)
Getting into Etsy’s settings and clicking on these services are pretty simple. Offering gift wrapping and personal gift messages will only help your buyer which in turn ups your customer service game.
Have fun with it and setup a gift wrapping station and let the wrapping begin! Your customers will love it!