Brands like Etsy and Williams Sonoma have added sections featuring gifts that can be bought for mothers and titled them appropriately – hinting shoppers to shop from the section.

3. Build FOMO through timers

Get your shoppers to act fast by telling them - the occasion is not too far away.

To do this – add a countdown timer.

✅ Add the countdown timer to your homepage

✅ Make it prominent

✅ Add days, hours, minutes and seconds

✅ Install timers 7-10 days before Mother’s Day

✅ You can also add it to a sticky banner above/below the navigation bar

4. Add a special “for mom” category

Don’t have your shoppers go in circles hunting for a perfect gift for their mothers.

Give them all the relevant options in one place.

✅ Create a separate category adding possible Mother’s Day gifts to it

✅ Add the category to the navigation bar - in the beginning

✅ Feature a special section on the homepage and link it to the category page

✅ You can go a step further and create subcategories for easier navigation and decision-making

5. Redesign your special category page

While the most natural instinct is to keep branding constant across all the pages on the website – you may consider doing something slightly different on special occasions.

Change the color palette.

✅ Try adding colors that portray the love of mothers - red - pink - white or lavender - white etc

✅ Add other visual elements like flowers, hearts, home, mother-child silhouette etc

✅ Don’t completely disconnect from your branding style though – keep the tone, font and other visual elements consistent

✅ Add a hero image aligning with the color palette used

Your Mother’s Day category page can look something like this:

6. Create gifting guides

Narrowing down product suggestions based on personal attributes – way easier for shoppers to pick and choose from.

How to do this?

Create gift guides.

Let’s understand how to go about this.

✅ Shortlist 2-3 factors based on which your shoppers would like to sort your products

Psst. Let us help you with one - budget.

✅ Now, based on these factors, segregate your products

✅ You can guide your shoppers to the right products in 2 ways:

Ask questions in a quiz format and display the final set of products at the end, which the shoppers can choose from.
Show the entire catalog with segregated products; something like this:

Pro tip: Do not forget to add the link to the guide to a sticky bar above/below the navigation bar.

7. Offer help

This advice pertains to those visitors who intend to buy but can’t make up their minds.

You can help them decide by a small dialogue chatbot popup.

Ask your shoppers if you can help them look for the right product.

You can shoot a dialogue chatbot popup saying something like this: Do you need help selecting a gift for your mom?

Few points to keep in mind:

✅ Place the chatbot in the bottom right part of the screen

✅ The popup should not disrupt the user activity - make it small

✅ Show the dialogue popup only once during one session

✅ Let it get initiated after a delay so that the user has had some time to browse - at least 30-45 seconds

8. Ease product discovery via filters

Gifts as a category is too vague for shoppers to understand what you have to offer.

Hence, it is imperative to add filters!

Whether your filters are based on product categories, budget or personas, or a mix of these or more – they ought to be there.

Williams Sonoma has added filters for shoppers to easily find a gift that will suit their needs.

You'll love reading: A Complete Guide To eCommerce Website Optimization: 28 Improvements You Can Make Today

9. Upsell – complete the package

Fancy packages over a single product, any day!

Help shoppers make a gift package by suggesting relevant products with the gift.

These suggestions can be made as ‘Commonly Bought Together’ or ‘Complete the Package’ :

✅ Product pages

✅ Cart page

Bloomingdales suggests upsells on the product page. For example, if the gift is a T-shirt, you can suggest a bottom and bag with it.

10. Request your shoppers to share your website

Coming to the stage when the user has completed the purchase – ask for referrals.

How to do that effectively?

✅ Once the purchase is completed, redirect to a thank you page

✅ Add a shareable link to get referrals on it

✅ Explain your referral policy

✅ Request the shoppers to share the link

✅ Provide multiple sharing options - copy link option, through social media, email etc.

Uniqlo’s order confirmation messaging includes several bold callouts. Among them is “Get $10” when you “refer a friend now.” Customers automatically receive a unique referral link that makes it easy to track referral-based sales.

Offers and add-ons

11. Ship for free!

Offer free shipping on either select products or all – what matters is – whether or not shoppers know about it after they land on your website.

So, where should you place your ‘Free Shipping’ text?

The best places are:

✅ Near the ‘Add to cart’ or ‘Buy’ button

✅ Anywhere else within the buy section

✅ Site-wide headers or banners

✅ In case there is a lot of information in the buy section (like offers, warranties etc.), it can be placed just outside the buy section

Allbirds places ‘Free shipping’ in their buy section, right under the title - differently formatted and highlighted so that shoppers do not miss it.

Baublebar places its shipping offer on a site-wide banner.

12. Easy gifting options

A package becomes a gift when it's wrapped in those colorful sheets and has a neatly tied ribbon on it.

Make your gifts special by offering gift-wrapping options – at checkout. These options can be:

✅ Free gift wrapping for all gifts

✅ Free gift wrapping above a specific threshold

✅ Free gift wrapping only on Mother’s Day items

✅ Free message but paid wrapping

✅ Standard free wrapping + boxed paid wrapping

Pro tip: You can also personalize gifts by adding a customizable card. Have the shoppers provide the message and you can either give them different designs of cards to choose from or have a standard card.

Kate Spade New York offers a free gift card and customized message along with an option to add gift wrapping for $6. This option is available at checkout.

13. Add a gift to the gift

Adding a little something extra to the Mother’s Day package shows that you care about the shoppers’ experience – immediately establishing a relationship and quick conversions. (And also means repeat purchases in the future!)

During the checkout, you can give your shoppers the option to add extras – either for free or for a charge. These extras can be:

✅ A personalized card

✅ Chocolates

✅ An accessory

✅ A gift bag

✅ Balloons

✅ Stickers

✅ Fridge magnets

✅ Extra samples of any product etc.

Mother's Day marketing ideas for eCommerce

14. Pop discounts - convert shoppers

What makes shoppers hesitant to leave your website – an offer that they might not get again.

For this, add an exit intent popup. Include:

✅ A coupon code - valid only for a limited time

✅ CTA to claim the offer

✅ Field for email address - to remarket

✅ Images of your products

✅ An exit intent CTA indicating loss on the shoppers' part

(Something like - No, I will pay a higher price)

Harry & David show an exit intent popup providing a 15% discount only for the day.

15. Bump up loyalty points for Mother’s Day purchases

You don’t want your regular shoppers to visit elsewhere hunting for better deals on special occasions.

What you can do for them is – bump up the loyalty points on Mother’s Day purchases to 1.5x or even 2x.

This can be on:

✅ Selected products

✅ Entire collection

Note: Do not forget to inform your existing customers about the rewards program offer. Shoot an email or a WhatsApp campaign message.

16. Ease shopping by creating bundles and hampers

A little hand-holding to get an idea as to how can the gift be made perfect and holistic is always appreciated by shoppers.

To do this:

✅ Create hampers and bundles for the occasion

✅ Clearly mention what’s included in the package

✅ Create a filter for hampers

✅ Add ‘Hampers’ to gift guides as well

Rifle Paper Co. has created bundles under the Mother’s Day category – they group a couple of products and offer them as a hamper. Shoppers can also opt for individual items.

Promotions

17. Advertise your shop

Take your products and offers to a new audience. Put your shop out on Meta, Tiktok and Google as ads.

A few points to note:

✅ Make sure the link the product shown in ads to the product page of that product

✅ Don’t use the same creative across platforms. Repurpose them according to different platforms

✅ You can use UGC to run ads

✅ Don’t miss out on trends – memes and music – incorporate them in your ads

18. Get your social media followers excited

The offers, discounts, add-ons, product bundles, new product additions for Mother’s Day – everything should go on your social media accounts – either as posts or stories.

Your followers will reciprocate your excitement.

Make sure to:

✅ Post about your products

✅ Post about the offers

✅ Add stories about add-ons and offers on stories

✅ Turn stories into highlights

✅ Add UGC as reels

✅ Add behind-the-scenes of gift wrapping or creating hampers as reels

✅ Add polls and quizzes to engage your audience (For example: Poll → Have you planned your Mother’s Day gift yet?; Next story → If not, check out our guide)

You get the gist 🙂

A really creative way to showcase the product while establishing a brilliant brand recall through visual cues.

19. Pinterest still works 🙂

Inspiration + Ideas = Pinterest.

Post Mother’s Day gift ideas (aesthetically) to your Pinterest account and lead interested viewers straight to buying your products.

Though it is a long-term effort, it definitely fetches results.

20. WhatsApp campaigns can do wonders

The tip here is to personalize messages – WhatsApp is a very personal platform and you don’t want your brand to shoot ads in your customers’ inboxes.

To get started:

✅ Get a WhatsApp for business

✅ Segment your audience

✅ Create personalized messages for every segment and run campaigns

✅ You can even upload your catalog on WhatsApp and drive sales directly

Not only can you market on WhatsApp but you can also add the widget to your website from which shoppers can reach out to you for shopping assistance

Pro tip: Recover abandoned cart through WhatsApp campaigns!

21. Email campaigns to drive sales

What we would recommend is to run two separate campaigns – for those who have visited the website - at least once and for those who haven’t.

For those who haven’t, run campaigns to draw them to your website. The campaigns should communicate:

✅ New additions – Mother’s Day catalog

✅ Link to gift guides

✅ Gift recommendations

✅ Discounts and offers - free shipping, gift wrapping, discounts, reward points etc.

✅ Urgency by limited-time exclusive coupons

✅ Early access or VIP offers

For those who have visited your site and not purchased - run abandonment campaigns:

✅ Abandoned cart email - run a completely different campaign for this category

✅ Highlight free shipping for those who abandon the site

✅ Send personalized product recommendations

✅ Drop a countdown timer

✅ Offer a special limited-period discount

Final word

98% of visitors who visit an eCommerce site—drop off without buying anything.

Reason: User experience issues that cause friction for visitors.

And Convertcart solves exactly that.

We help eCommerce brands optimize their websites to boost their conversions.

We've helped 500+ eCommerce stores (in the US) improve user experience—and 2X their conversion rate.

Our conversion experts can audit your site—identify UX issues, and suggest changes to turn more of your visitors into customers.

21 Last-Minute Mother's Day Marketing Ideas For eCommerce Stores

Rethink your website

1. Exude warmth via your first fold

2. Add nudges throughout your website