Easy gift ideas for any time of year or any occasion
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Finding the perfect low-cost holiday gifts for your business associates, clients and customers can be tough when you’re on a tight budget. But you still want to show your valuable partners and colleagues how much they mean to the success of your business. So below, we’ve compiled simple, inexpensive holiday gift ideas for customers and clients to let them know that you’re thinking about them without breaking your budget.
Keep some things in mind when you’re trying to put together budget-friendly holiday gifts for clients, customers, employees, and service providers.
- Give gifts that appeal to a broad audience. Obviously, you can’t please everyone but if you can make the majority happy you’re on the right track.
- Get a present that is inexpensive to buy in bulk and easy to find.
- Keep it gender-neutral. Buy items that everyone would be comfortable using.
- Make sure you consider packaging & shipping costs. The heavier or bigger the item, the more the delivery cost.
At-home spa day
A day at the spa is exactly what everyone could use right now. A small sampling of lotions, oils, lip balms, bath bombs, soaps, and hand sanitizers is easy to put together and something everyone can use.
Buy your products in bulk from a beauty supply company to save money. Then you can easily replace the branded product labels with personalized labels featuring a fun holiday message if you want. Travel-size bottles are a perfect size and something everyone can use for road trips and vacations.
Send something saucy
Add a little flair and flavor to their winter holidays with a selection of hot sauces, oils, marinades, vinegar, or salad dressings. You can order products in bulk from retailers and then if you like, replace the branding with fun festive personalized labels.
We also threw in some fun, festive stickers that you can easily personalize with your own branding or fun slogans that customers can use on their water bottles, laptops, and more.
Morning pick-me-up
You can never go wrong with a gift of gourmet coffees or teas. If you have a small client list and you know their preferences, they’ll appreciate it even more receiving their favorite morning brew.
For coffee gifts, add gourmet beans, a personalized mug, special flavorings, spices, or sweeteners. If tea is the gift of choice, you can include organic teas, a teapot, a strainer, honey, and sweeteners.
A gift for the senses
One thing everyone learned while staying home was that nothing is better than having a clean, sweet-smelling house. To make a gift almost anyone would enjoy, choose your favorite scent or one you know your clients would enjoy and fill a box with a variety of items to keep their home, clothes, linen, and even themselves smelling great.
You can focus on one room in the house like the office, kitchen, or bedroom, and then choose the appropriate items. For instance, for an office or workspace gift box, you could include a scented candle, a small spray bottle of room freshener, some hand lotion, and lip balm. Think of things you like to have nearby when working. For the kitchen, you could add a bar of hand soap, hand sanitizer, a candle, essential oil, and some hand or lip balm.
Remember when choosing items for the office or kitchen your scents should match the space. For the kitchen choose scents like herbs, spices, or citrus that you’d smell in the kitchen. For a workspace find calming scents that aren’t too overwhelming and increase productivity.
Stick it!
Custom stickers are a trend that never seems to go away. People love putting stickers on everything from their laptops and water bottles to notebooks and cars.
Do you own a craft brewery? Then give vendors, clients, and service providers fun beer-themed stickers. If you’re a nonprofit or charity that wants to give small gifts of appreciation to those who help keep your organization going, create packs of custom stickers that showcase your cause.
Stickers are a very small investment and something that not only will make your customers smile but will keep your company top of mind every time they see your stickers.
Pancake breakfast
There’s nothing better than waking up to freshly grilled pancakes with warm butter and syrup on a Sunday morning. Or any day for that matter. That’s where this easy gift idea was born.
Create a simple gift featuring a box of personalized pancake flour, maple syrup, and maybe a small Christmas ornament. You can personalize your products with custom labels and a coordinating recipe card.
What makes this idea perfect is it’s something almost everyone will enjoy, it’s easy to put together, and it’s easy for them to make. You can tailor the gifts to your specific region or the tastes of your clients. Give a waffle gift box or a scone baking kit instead. Include a locally made raspberry or blackberry syrup or a small package of dried fruit, nuts, or cinnamon that they can add to the baking mix if they so desire.
Just make sure you make it easy so that all the recipient has to do is add a few things like water, oil, and eggs.
Reusable bottles
With almost everyone carrying a reusable water bottle these days, an infuser water bottle is a great, and healthy gift idea. Your recipients will be able to enjoy refreshing fruit-infused water year-round.
You can buy infusers for as little as 60 cents to upward of $30. And plastic water bottle infusers are great when it comes to shipping costs since they’re lightweight.
Water bottles aren’t your thing? Try a thermal travel coffee mug or even a hot tea infuser. If most of your gifts are traveling to the Northeast or Midwest, maybe a bag of hot chocolate and a festive holiday mug.
Comfort and coziness
Whether warm and fuzzy for cold-weather locales or fun and personalized for every day, socks are in. Because who doesn’t love a pair of adorable sloth socks?
A nice pair of quality socks or a knit scarf can run between $9 to $20, less if you buy in bulk. Just remember, feet come in lots of sizes so if you don’t know your recipients well then a pair of unisex floor socks is a good way to go. Obviously, shipping costs for these items would be lower.
If you know your customers and clients personally and you don’t have a big list to fill, take note of their likes and dislikes. A pair of French Bulldog socks or a Green Bay Packers scarf could fit the bill.
Do all your clients live on the West Coast? Then think about a beach towel or maybe a pair of fun sunglasses and a bottle of sunscreen.
A little gift of green
Give a gift that gives back year-round with a cute little succulent in a pretty personalized pot. Succulents make perfect budget-friendly gifts. Not only are they inexpensive, but they pack and travel well, unlike many other plants, and can go long periods without water.
You can buy succulents online at Amazon for as little as $2 each. But a trip to your local nursery might offer a better selection and wholesale prices. Planting soil and container costs are also minimal.
If you need to ship your succulent gifts, make sure the soil is completely dry. Then gently wrap the entire plant and container in tissue paper or butcher paper and secure with tape. Then place it in the shipping container surrounded by secure packing material. Make sure to mark “perishable” on the outside of the shipping container.
On-the-go gift
If your delivery guy is always eating lunch in his truck or your employees brown-bag it every day, then this can be a great gift idea. It costs a little more to put together but you can customize it to fit your budget.
In our bag, we included a variety of plastic food storage containers and a thermal travel mug. Nice insulated lunch bags can be bought online for between $15-$20. To lower the cost of the gift, you could replace the travel mug with some inexpensive reusable flatware and include just one or two food containers.
To add a unique personalized surprise, include a box of your favorite candy, snack, or drink with a note of why you chose it. Again, the sky’s the limit. It’s not how much you spend on a gift, but the thought and personalization you put into it.
Organization in the bag
A simple, inexpensive gift for almost anyone is the gift of organization. Simply pack a fun tote bag with a journal and some pens to create a great gift for someone on the go. You can buy bulk journals and tote bags online if you have a lot of gifts to send.
If you want to DIY your gift or only need one or two, simply add your own custom labels to the journal and try iron-on fabric transfers to create your own special bag.
Still want more?
The affordable gift ideas we created above are just that, ideas. Don’t feel limited to water bottle infusers, spa gifts, and socks. Replace water bottles with a coffee mug or succulents and a scented candle.
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The best part is you can make all of the labels, cards, and tags featured above using our free holiday templates. Simply pick your product and choose from our huge catalog of designs you can personalize for your gifts. Order them online using Avery WePrint, our professional printing service, or buy blank labels by the sheet online or our printable in-pack products.
If you are looking for Christmas gift ideas and inspiration, check out all the ways Avery can help you do the holidays right.
Hello. I am looking for some envelopes with some basic design on it for my greeting cards. Please advise if this is possible. I can mail two different types of greeting cards I hold for specific sizes
Kunal,
I notice you are writing from the UK. Greetings from California, U.S.! Unfortunately, at this time, neither the US or UK offer custom printed envelopes. However, in the U.S. we can create custom sized labels that will fit your envelopes exactly. But you will need to reach out to your UK division to see what exactly they offer. We have slightly different offerings in the States. You can reach the UK at hello@avery.co.uk. I will also make sure and pass this idea along to our product development team. It’s a great idea. Thank you for reading. Cheers!