A new year is lying ahead of us, and while wishing for an amazing 2022, we don’t think it’s too risky to say that most of us especially wish for a specific thing to start disappearing from our everyday lives. Yes, we’re looking at you, COVID-19.
We’ve most likely all suffered one way or another while having a pandemic as a life companion for around two years now. However, with that said – as part of the gifting industry, we’re a part of the lucky companies that have seen revenues grow because of the pandemic. (At least we have at GoGift.)
But, a question that – to us at least – is interesting is what COVID will take to its grave and what it will leave to become a part of “the new normal”.
Anyhow, below is what 2021 has contributed with at GoGift:
We’ve benefitted from people’s overall increased online shopping. E-commerce has sure seen golden days, and it will be exciting to see if these shopping habits have come to stay!
Showing affection, love and consideration through gift-giving has always been a thing. But these kinds of lovely gestures have indeed also become even more widespread during the lockdown(s). it seems like relations, in general, have become (more) important to people through such vulnerable times. Being able to see our friends, families, and colleagues is something we can no longer take for granted. But, it’s easy to share appreciation in the form of a gift.
By treating employees, partners and clients with gifts and gift cards, employers have found a great way to acknowledge hard work and loyalty while tasks have been done and goals have been accomplished at work-from-home setups and via numerous Zoom and Teams meetings!
Also, let’s not forget all the parties and social gatherings that have been cancelled. Here, we’ve seen gifts being given as replacements for parties. Now, let’s quickly move on from this sad bullet point and cross our fingers to wish for some proper post-COVID parties to be thrown in the coming year.
In the Scandinavian countries, we’ve seen the selling of gift cards for experiences increase during the last year. This, e.g. has to do with governments having taken away taxes for experience gifts (for up to a certain amount of money, that is) to help out the suffering restaurants, bars, theatres, cinemas, etc. Let’s see how the coming year turns out for this gift category.
Narrowing it down from overall gifting industry trends and putting on our GoGift glasses, lots have also happened to us. First of all, we’ve had our most successful year ever – this, first of all, has to do with the above-listed stuff, but also because of some internal changes and (not least) improvements.
GoGift has expanded: New colleagues have joined our team, and we’re now represented by 15 nationalities spread out on 100+ employees. As we’re going through some exciting times and looking into an even more exciting future, we’re still planning to expand further. A lot.
Also, talking about our variety of nationalities, we’ve seen a strong focus on ensuring a diverse company culture in general. Both in terms of ethnicity but also in terms of gender, age, background, sexual orientation etc. GoGift is a part of the media conglomerate Egmont, which has strong politics maintaining – and further improving – the diverse work environment making us extra proud.
So, a few things seem clear when looking into our blue GoGift crystal ball: We’ll be expanding, we’ll be ensuring even more diversity, and in general, we have some exciting times ahead of us. No doubt here. However, lots of questions are still out in the open, and let’s catch up about that in a year.