While e-commerce was on the rise before the pandemic, the massive shift to digital supercharged the online shopping industry — bringing entirely new categories of products (and shoppers) to the web.
A Record-Breaking Year for Online Shopping
According to Adobe, Americans have spent a record $1.7 trillion online over the last two years, a 55% uptick from two years before the pandemic. This unprecedented growth has been driven in part by the increasing popularity of online gifting.
The Gifting Experience: A Subpar Experience?
But despite the fact that hundreds of billions of people now regularly turn to digital channels (e.g., Amazon) to gift, the gifting experience remains subpar. That’s the opinion of Alex Ingram, at least, who co-founded a startup — Zest — that’s focused on e-commerce gifting flows.
Meet Zest: A New Player in the Gifting Space
Zest is Ingram’s second company after Sunlight Health, which sought to make brand-name and specialty prescription medications affordable for patients with chronic conditions. He met Zest’s second co-founder, Jeremy Feinstein, while working at Flatiron Health, where they helped to develop cancer center software.
"After Flatiron’s sale to Roche, we both felt it was time for something new," Ingram told TechCrunch via email. "Obviously, e-commerce is worlds away from oncology. But we wanted to build something that could really help small- and medium-sized businesses to succeed in an increasingly challenging environment."
Making Online Gifting ‘Delightful’
With Zest, Ingram says that the goal was to make the experience of online gifting "delightful." How? By allowing e-commerce brands to embed a "send as a gift" button on their product or cart pages and letting givers choose a digital greeting card, add their own message, and send it directly from the product page.
Why Online Gifting Matters
"It’s never been harder for direct-to-consumer brands to acquire and retain customers," Ingram notes. "That’s partly due to the sheer number of direct-to-consumer brands out there today … For brands, the value we’re providing is first and foremost an elevated gifting experience for their customers."
The Benefits of Zest
When it’s so easy and natural to send a gift directly from a product or cart page, these brands will sell more gifts and reach more people. By making online gifting a seamless and enjoyable experience, Zest is helping e-commerce businesses to increase sales and customer engagement.
A New Era for Online Gifting
The rise of online gifting has created a new era of opportunity for e-commerce businesses. With Zest leading the way, it’s clear that online gifting is here to stay — and will only continue to grow in popularity in the years to come.
