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Holiday Shopping Splinters Into 7 Tactical Phases

Plus: The beauty of Times Square in generating UGC at scale

Author

Avinash Duggempudi
August 27, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

The Wrap Up

Here's what's happening this week in the world of e-commerce and gifting marketing: - Mailchimp maps seven holiday phases to plan spend. - Times Square stunts turn IRL into measurable reach. - Nostalgia IP + mystery gifts supercharge donor acquisition. - Culture-first collabs show scarcity can beat discounts. - GWP thresholds lift AOV without eroding pricing power.

⏱️How Nécessaire Outpaced Competitors With 47% More Revenue



Nécessaire went into Prime Day with proof that Meta and TikTok were quietly fueling Amazon sales, even when they showed up as “organic.”

Armed with that evidence, they increased spend and beat their peer group with 47% higher revenue. Most teams would’ve cut back and left millions on the table.

👉 Follow Fospha on LinkedIn for data-backed playbooks and real-world learnings from leading retail brands, so you can see exactly how the best are scaling profitably.

📌WEEKLY MUST-KNOWS

E-COMMERCE STRATEGY
Intuit Maps Seven Phases Of Holiday Shopping
Mailchimp’s new report breaks the holiday season into seven phases, revealing shifting motivations from early planners to last-minute buyers and a strong “joy of giving” driver. This matters as marketers recalibrate calendars, creative and offers by phase, with less price sensitivity in pre-peak and urgency spikes late. DTC and retail teams can align CRM, inventory and forecasting to phase-specific behavior for higher ROAS.

Molton Brown and World Duty Free activated festive Beauty Stations across nine UK airports and are extending with Must Have Tables into January to push curated gift sets. High-footfall travel hubs convert last-minute gifting and self-treats, offering live tests for assortment, pricing and contentainment. Premium gifting brands can adapt the model in US gateways, aligning staffing and stock to peak travel windows.

Event Marketer spotlights brands turning Times Square into UGC engines, from Zig-Zag’s 4/20 countdown to Liquid I.V.’s synchronized screen reset and robot sampling. The format converts spectacle into scaled earned reach and community content, especially with Gen Z. Experiential and social teams should plan clear KPIs across content volume, footfall and conversion before investing.

🗣️ LEADING VOICES

Signal From Noise: How To Nail TikTok in Five Pillars of Success.

The link below is an interactive guide on how to nail TikTok based on Jay Hunter & Catalina at Mary Ruth's, fantastic session at eTail™ Boston, where they discussed going from $1 to $40M in one year!

Interact with the guide here: https://lnkd.in/eUUwPWVi A write up of their session is also available via ClickZ.com: https://lnkd.in/e9qAiYBn

⚡QUICK READS

Ad Age Flags AI-Led Creative And Celebrity Bets: Top ads lean into AI themes and sharp celebrity pairings, signaling budget shifts to tech-enabled storytelling and partner-driven attention plays.(More)

English Tea Shop Pushes Gift-Ready Wellness Packs: Retailer-exclusive samplers and wellness-led SKUs underscore self-care gifting demand and the role of packaging as a shelf-level conversion lever.(More)

G-Shock x Channel One Drop Limited Carnival Watch: A culture-first limited edition tied to Notting Hill Carnival shows how timed collabs and bundled gifts can fuel scarcity-led sellouts and community reach.(More)

ClickZ is a ClickZ Media publication in the DTC eCommerce division