Fall 2011
All in the Family: Celebrating Mom & Dad By Sue Marquette Poremba

This year, your customer spent an average of $141 on Mother’s Day and $106 on Father’s Day. So make sure to leave some room for Mom and Dad in your spring inventory budget.

Every spring, people of all ages are tasked with finding just the right gift for Mom and Dad. And there will be a lot of buying being done—a 2010 National Retail Federation survey found that Mother’s Day shopping comes in second only to the December holidays when it comes to consumer spending. Father’s Day hasn’t reached the same spending levels as Mother’s Day, but it is gaining momentum especially now that gift stores can offer choices that go beyond the standard tie or after-shave.

At Stella e Luna in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ, both holidays get a lot of attention every spring, although owner Lauren Inzero admits that Mother’s Day is the store’s bigger holiday. Inzero works closely with vendors to create displays and generate interest in the gift-giving holidays. For example, for Mother’s Day last year, Inzero worked with Dogeared Jewels and Gifts of Culver City, CA, to do a trunk show that focused on items for moms.

To attract people to the store for Mother’s Day, Inzero uses special signage advertising the holiday items. The products are set up near the register so her staff can talk about them and answer questions. She also does email blasts to reach out to regular customers. “For Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, we do raffles, which is a great way to get names for our email list,” Inzero says. Last year, Inzero raffled off one of the Dogeared necklaces especially for the holiday.

All that glitters

Indeed jewelry is one of the key gift categories for Mother’s Day spending. Dogeared has been making jewelry for 20 years, with an entire product line that’s devoted specifically for moms, says company founder and designer Marcia Maizel-Clarke.

“It’s a collection of necklaces that come on cards with words written just for mothers,” she explains. “We always design with moms in mind because our philosophy has resonated so well with them.”

Dogeared’s top sellers are the Mom Karma, Mom, You Are… Loved and Mom Reminder necklaces. The partnership that Dogeared has with Stella e Luna is a standard Maizel-Clarke strives for with all the stores she works with. “We try really hard to provide in-store support to all of our retail partners. For major holidays like Mother’s Day, we always create a program to make ordering easy and sell-through a success, because it is so important to stand out from the sea of other products out there,” she says.

Maizel-Clarke says that Dogeared’s Mother’s Day products are, not surprisingly, purchased by children buying for their mom or husbands buying for their wives. “But we are seeing more friends buying for moms-to-be, and sisters buying for each other,” she adds.

Also doting on dad

Somebody is certainly buying gifts for Mom and Dad. According to the National Retail Federation, the average amount spent on a Mother’s Day gift this year was $141—up from $128 last year. Not quite as much money is dropped on Dad’s gifts, but the gap is closing. In 2011, the National Retail Federation says, the average gift purchases for Dad cost $106—also up from an average of $95 the year before. Children and moms are buying the gifts for dad.

One of the many Father’s Day gifts they’re buying is cufflinks from Dallas-based Cufflinks Inc. And while cufflinks might not seem like a radical departure for Father’s Day gifts, the company takes the concept one step further, understanding for example, that men like to wear items that show off their favorite teams. Sarah Huggins, the company’s public relations and website services coordinator, says the cufflinks are in higher demand during the June holiday. Other functional cufflinks that do well as Father’s Day gifts include the stainless steel bottle opener cufflinks or the cufflinks that mask a 4GB USB flash drive.

The company’s design team makes sure the products stand out on store shelves, even at times when they might be overshadowed by other spring holidays and events. Cufflinks, Inc. uses themed packaging such as turf inside the officially licensed NFL boxes, and rubber tire tread inside the licensed GM cufflinks, to create curb appeal so to speak. “We take our branding very seriously,” says Huggins. “The look and feel of our cufflinks inside their packaging can really make or break a sale. When your primary customer is giving a gift, your focus on presentation is incredibly important.”

While cufflinks with a favorite sports team is a cool gift, new fathers might be looking for something a little more practical. When Scott Shoemaker was a new dad, he noticed that all the gear to haul around the baby’s paraphernalia was either designed for women or was decorated with cute characters—there was very little that a dad would be willing to carry around. So Shoemaker and his partner started DadGear in Denver, CO, to sell diaper bags for men. Popular items are the backpack diaper bag and the messenger bag style diaper bag.

“It turns out that the product fills a specific niche,” Shoemaker says. It’s a product that works for the father-to-be as well as for dads with young children. “It’s the type of gift that recognizes the important role a dad plays in his child’s life,” Shoemaker adds.

Shoemaker says the way to entice customers to buy the product as a Father’s Day gift is to make sure there is a section of the store that focuses on items for dads. Regular customers will remember the section when it comes times to purchase a gift.

Making room for mom and dad

That’s an idea echoed by Oona McSweeney, who oversees Stylesight’s retail coverage. “Retailers should approach Mother’s and Father’s Day as they would any other category of the business,” she says. “Buy into two or three strong themes for each holiday.” The themes shouldn’t be a seemingly unrelated assortment of products, but she adds, retailers should look for themes that resonate with the retailer’s core consumer.

Unlike holidays like Valentine’s Day or Halloween, which have the solo spotlight for weeks, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day have to compete with other holidays and events for shelf space and customer dollars. This year, for example, Easter fell unusually late in April and Easter-related items were on display for a longer period of time. May and June are prime months for events like graduations, religious rites of passage, bridal showers and weddings. How do you make sure Mother’s Day and especially Father’s Day don’t get lost in the shuffle?

“Feature distinctly different themes and color stories for each holiday so that each display has its own identity,” says McSweeney. “When merchandising the store, put the focal point on the nearest holiday, and then strategically merchandise on either end of the cash wrap as a visual reminder to customers. At the checkout counters, feature Graduation Day and Father’s Day gift card displays, for instance, as well as impulse gifts.”

The late Easter was a problem for Blossom Bucket of North Lawrence, OH, because it made Mother’s Day almost an afterthought. With the holidays so close together, says Blossom Bucket owner Cindy Lowry, people want to get all their purchases in one trip, rather than have to come back again a week later. Lowry’s advice is to make sure the displays are arranged so customers will notice the items for the various holidays and to ramp up signage and advertising. She encourages her customers to order the Mother’s and Father’s Day products by April 1.

“Display the products grouped together as a unit with a sign that says, ‘Don’t Forget Mom and Dad!’ Add the dates of the holiday,” Lowry says. “And then as soon as Easter is over, make sure you replace it with the Mother’s Day display.”

Blossom Bucket specializes in quality resin products that retail for under $20, with an extensive line for Mother’s Day.

“We not only cover mothers, but also grandma, nana, sister, aunt, and the people who are a mother figure,” says Lowry. “We have a new line of resin cards, which actually open and have a sentiment inside.”

The company also focuses on Father’s Day, featuring sports figures and sentimental pieces.

Consumer demographics

The new resin card has quickly become one of the most popular products from Blossom Bucket. Plaques that have sentimental or appreciative sayings are also extremely popular as gifts for parents and grandparents.

The demographic purchasing her items for Mother’s and Father’s Day is fairly widespread, largely because of the relatively low retail price. “You have kids not only buying for mom and dad, but also grandma and grandpa,” Lowry says. “The adults are buying not only for parents but also for sisters and aunts.”

Jenny Present, creator of the Proud Mama jewelry collection, says at Mother’s Day, she sees an increase in sales by men, most of whom are purchasing gifts for their significant others.

Present, who is based in St. Louis, designs and makes a variety of handcrafted jewelry. Her Proud Mama collection focuses on motherhood. “The collection is perfect for any mom because it can be personalized and tailored to fit each and every woman as an individual,” Present says. “Women can choose to have a name, significant date, special word or meaningful phrase stamped on the silver, gold, or copper pendants.”

These necklaces are Present’s best-selling Mother’s Day items. Her Casey Simple earrings are also popular.

Whereas Proud Mama items show the elegant side to Mother’s Day, All Moms Go to Heaven focus on the lighter side of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. The name of the company, according to founder Jean Johnson, came when Johnson was giving birth to her first child and told her own mother, “I must be going to heaven for this,” to which her mother replied, “All moms go to heaven!” Johnson then launched her company, recognizing moms with a signature logo of a capital “M” with a halo, but also with many items that focus on dads and father figures.

Her most popular items for Mother’s Day are the logo apron and tote bag, as well as the magnetic greeting card collection. The magnetic greeting cards are also popular Father’s Day items.

Who buys All Mom’s Go to Heaven products? Johnson says while men will shop for their wives and mothers for Mother’s Day, women purchase the bulk of the items for both holidays and for a greater variety of people.

While having special items geared specifically for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day will attract people making purchases for those holidays, gift buying for those holidays has expanded. “Women and grandmothers shop for their daughters and daughters-in-law,” says Johnson. “And many women will purchase gifts for friends and other moms.”

In other words, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day isn’t just for Mom and Dad anymore, and the products sold for these holidays represent the broad spectrum of people being celebrated.

Mouse over images below to view.


Sue Marquette Poremba

Sue Marquette Poremba is a freelance writer based in State College, PA. She specializes in technology, engineering, energy, and IT security topics. She has also published over a dozen essays and is the author of a book about the Philadelphia Phillies.




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