Ready to jump into a multi-million dollar industry that crosses multiple niches and spans every tier-1 country? Gift basket affiliate programs open up multiple opportunities to boost sales. The industry as a whole is estimated to be worth upwards of $125 billion.
As an affiliate, you can build an email list of customers who buy health gifts, food gifts, travel gifts, or corporate gifts for events organizers, staff loyalty, or customer retention, and promote repeatedly.
Any niche in the gift-giving space can do well, but finding an entire store that caters to all tastes and budgets is more tricky for customers than you may think and that’s where you come in.
Be the person to collate the offers, negotiate deals, send out promotional discount codes in the run-up to holiday events, and consistently focus on marketing for milestone and life events.
The key drivers of the gift giving industry are:
- Holidays such as Christmas, Easter, and Mother’s Day
- Life Events, which include birthdays, anniversaries, engagements, new baby gift baskets, etc.
- Milestone events, which can be passing a driving test, graduating college/university, retiring, getting a promotion, etc.
In addition to the above, there are also corporate gift baskets, which can be useful for gifting traveling clients visiting from abroad, and for employee retention, which could see a business bulk order corporate gift baskets for their staff, such as a Christmas gift.
They can also be used for business milestones like the 10th anniversary of the business, or for gifting to people retiring by presenting them with a gift basket as a token of appreciation for their years of service.
Gift Basket Website ideas
- Focus on one type of gift basket. Options include health, beauty, organic, food, confectionery, alcohol, gluten-free, and novelty gift baskets.
- Corporate gifting is a different beast and can cover companies sending their most valued customers/clients a gift basket at their birthday, at Christmas, and/or they can also be used to increase engagement with employees, helping to reduce staff turnover by showing gratitude to the work staff do.
- Diet websites can hone in on the most suitable types of gift baskets for their audience, such as a Keto diet website, or category could benefit from nuts and high protein meat gift basket…
- Likewise, with lifestyle blogs, vegan gift baskets could be ideally suited to organic lifestyle websites
- Beauty bloggers could do well promoting luxury spa gift baskets for women, or go even narrower with gift baskets for menopausal women over 50, right at a time when they’re likely to want to change their skincare regime.
12 Gift Basket Affiliate Programs
- Gourmet Gift Baskets
- Gifts ‘n’ Ideas
- Harry & David
- Gift Baskets Overseas
- Canada’s Gift Baskets
- Funky Hampers
- Wine Basket, Baby Basket, and Capalbo’s Online
- Castle Baths
- Nuts.com
- The Bro Basket
- Getting Personal
- Hampers
1. Gourmet Gift Ideas
Gourmet Gift Baskets is based in New Hampshire in the US and they ship their products internationally. A USP is the packaging as they use instant foam rather than foam pellets or popcorn that’s standard practice in the gifting industry.
The instant foam used conforms to the package shape, protects the gift basket during transit, and gives it a uniform presentation. No clean-up required!
The online store covers every holiday and special occasion so keep an eye on the promotions hitting your inbox because promotions are constantly changing, as will the creatives they provide to help you drive sales.
The Gourmet Gift Baskets affiliate program is managed by Impact.com, uses a 14-day cookie, and pays 5% on most gift basket sales except floral baskets and gift baskets containing alcohol, which pays a lower commission of 1%.
2. Gifts ‘n’ Ideas
Giftsnideas.com covers a range of gifts for all occasions. The basket category covers Chocolate, fruit, gourmet, and spa gift baskets.
The website is optimized for international traffic and works terrific for a gift website. On the home page, visitors are prompted to select a date the gift should arrive, then choose the country to deliver to. Filters are then applied to show only the gift items that will be able to arrive on time. Only a few international stores have this auto-filter feature.
When choosing vendors to partner with for gifts, you need to know they dispatch on time and have reliable shipping partners. One of the worst customer experiences is ordering a gift for a friend, or family member for a Birthday or Anniversary that arrives after the event.
The Giftsnideas.com affiliate program is open to US affiliates and it’s listed on Shareasale.com and Webgains.com, has a datafeed available, uses a 60-day cookie, and pays 18% commission.
Sign up at Shareasale.com or webgains.com
3. Harry & David
HarryandDavid.com is a premium gift store with gourmet products including hand-picked fruits and fine cheese, all packed by hand. They have both gift baskets and gift towers for all occasions.
For something a little different, there’s also care package gift baskets. They ship internationally so if you run a parenting blog, the care package gift baskets would be suited to parents with teens studying, working, or traveling/backpacking abroad.
The affiliate program is managed by Impact.com, uses a 7-day cookie, and pays 3% commission on all gifts except those containing alcohol, which isn’t included in the affiliate program.
4. Gift Baskets Overseas
Gift Baskets Overseas is a one-stop gift store to send gift baskets internationally. When you need to send gifts to a loved one, such as when people are traveling abroad for business on their birthday or anniversary, this store can be a saving grace. Same for those with family overseas who can’t be there for a special event.
In addition to personal gift baskets, with so many international partners in their supply chain covering 200 countries, they have capitalized on that to progress into corporate gifts.
To make it easier for bulk orders, they provide corporate clients with a spreadsheet they can use to bulk order gift baskets. For B2B gift baskets, clients need to provide an order code, and that tracks your affiliate relationship to the client ensuring you’re credited as the referral.
The affiliate program is managed on ShareaSale.com, pays tiered commissions starting at 10%, rising to 12% then caps at 15% commission. Cookies last for 90-days, a datafeed of 5,000 products is available, affiliate support is in-house and there’s always promotional campaigns available.
5. Canada’s Gift Baskets
Canadians are at a major disadvantage when ordering anything online, because the instant they order from outside Canada, international shipping fees cannot be avoided. If you have Canadian traffic, you need to be taking advantage of Canadian affiliate programs for anything that ships.
Canadasgiftbaskets.ca is based in Toronto and have free shipping throughout Canada and there’s over 850 gift baskets available.
In addition to a wide range of gift baskets for all occasions, they also have corporate gift baskets sold in sets of 3 to 25 making them suitable to Canadian businesses with under 25 employees, or more by updating quantities.
The affiliate program is managed by Shareasale.com, pays 10% commission and uses a 60-day tracking cookie.
6. Funky Hampers
Funky Hampers is a small business based in the UK. They have over 5,000 uniquely made gift baskets and can cater to custom orders and with personalized printing options for cards, gift tags, and jars. All the gift baskets have free personalization.
At first glance, the site feels like part of Funky Pigeon but it’s not. The trading name used previously was Just The Shop LTD. There’s no relationship to Funky Pigeon or their parent company, WH Smith.
They currently don’t ship internationally, unless it’s for corporate gift baskets. For B2B sales, custom quotes can be provided for international shipping but you’ll likely find that those orders will be over the telephone and won’t track the sale to the affiliate so avoid sending international traffic to this store as it’s likely to hinder your conversions.
The countries worth targeting are the ones they ship to.
- Austria
- Belgium
- Czech Republic
- France
- Germany
- Ireland
- Italy
- Luxembourg
- Netherlands
- Portugal
- Slovakia
- Spain
- Sweden
- UK
The Funky Hampers affiliate program is managed by WebGains.com, pays 8% to 16% commissions, uses a 365-day tracking cookie, and there is a datafeed available.
As the store is a broad gift store, niche sites focusing exclusively on gift baskets will need the datafeed to avoid promoting bouquets or hampers with a different presentation, such as gift crates, or gift bouquets.
7. Wine Basket, Baby Basket, and Capalbo’s Online
This is a 3-in-1 affiliate program where you can send your traffic to the most relevant store for your audience so you can increase conversions.
Promote gift baskets for newborn or new baby announcements using the BabyBasket.com store. For get well soon gift baskets, or fruit baskets in general, use Capalbosonline.com. For alcohol gift baskets that include fine wines, champagne, beers, cheeses, chocolate and gourmet foods, go with WineBasket.com.
Standard shipping is only available in the US, but they can ship to Canada and Puerto Rico, but it’s $50 for the customs and duties fee.
The affiliate program for each store is managed on Commission Junction, pays a 7% commission and uses a 45-day cookie.
Sign up (search by Advertiser ID: 2387081)
8. Castle Baths
Castle Baths is a luxury cosmetics brand that make their own skin care formulas and craft unique hand-made baskets containing a selection of their products.
The store is ideal for gift baskets for anyone with health conditions that affect the skin, including cancer patients as the formulas are gluten-free, rich in anti-oxidants, green certified and free from parabens, which are believed to disrupt hormones and has been linked to breast cancer so for those in need of healthy cosmetics after a diagnosis, only organic ingredients are used in their cancer care gift baskets.
The affiliate program is listed on Shareasale.com with commission rates being performance based starting at 10%, rising marginally up to a maximum 20%. Cookies last for 60-days and there’s dedicated affiliate support provided by AdvertisePurple.com.
9. Nuts.com
Nuts.com is a third generation family run business based in Cranford, NJ, USA. They stock every type of nut you can imagine, buy wholesale direct from growers, do the roasting on-site and ship the same day the nuts are roasted so they arrive as fresh as possible.
They have a unique selection of nuts gift baskets, savory snacks and meat gift trays. A gift basket or gift tray filled with various nuts isn’t just suited to the nut lovers. Nuts are a staple in a healthy diet for protein, and dieters can get creative with them. Use them to get rid of cravings, and to add some crunch and flavor to an otherwise bland salad.
When someone’s struggling to stick to a diet, sending a basket of nuts with a personal message of encouragement could be just the ticket to help them stay the course. The recommended healthy amount to eat is no more than a one ounce portion per day.
The affiliate program is managed on the Shareasale.com network, pays 8% commission on new customer orders and 2% commission on repeat orders. Cookies are set to 30-days and they also pay $10 for any new affiliates you refer to join the affiliate program.
10. The Bro Basket
The Bro Basket store sell gift baskets for men created by men. Manly presentations and products that include food, booze, snacks and beef jerky gift baskets for the meat loving guys.
Gift baskets are available for all occasions and events or customers can shop by theme, such as golf, which contains the food, a choice of alcohol, golf balls, tees, and towels with a handy clip to attach to a bag.
All the orders are hand-picked with the freshest produce and shipped the same day the baskets are put together.
The affiliate program is managed on Shareasale.com, pays 12% commission and uses a 90-day cookie.
11. Getting Personal
Getting Personal was founded in the UK in 2005 and became part of the Card Factory Group (one of Britain’s largest card retailers) in 2011, speeding up the stores’ ability to expand to an international audience. The store is an entire gift store for every occasion.
Something to note is that gift baskets in the UK that only contain consumables are advertised as hampers. Not gift baskets, but not every hamper is in a basket. Some are just boxes.
To find the food gift baskets, you’ll need to do some searching to find the products, then use deep linkingto promote them. It would be much better to see a datafeed available so for now, selection and linking needs to be done manually.
The affiliate program is managed by Affiliate Window, pays 10% commission on new customer orders and 3% commission on orders from returning customers and the cookies last for 30-days.
12. Hampers
Hampers.com is another UK based firm that focus exclusively on food and drink packages. As with the hampers at GettingPersonal.co.uk, some are in boxes, other are gift baskets. Again, you need to find them manually.
A unique aspect here is that international shipping is available and visitors can shop by the destination they want to send a gift too, which will automatically filter out items that can’t be included due to shipping restrictions, such as where alcohol can’t be shipped, it won’t be shown in the product feed.
The audience for food gift baskets, or hampers of any type being exported from Britain are the countries with the most UK Expats.
The British ex-pat communities worldwide are estimated to be 5.5 million. The majority have moved to Australia, the US, Spain, Canada, and Ireland. See here for statistics.
The types of foods worth promoting to ex-pats are those people are most likely to reminisce about missing back home. The comfort foods and drinks such as English Tea, strawberry jam, and shortbread.
The affiliate program is managed by Affiliate Window, pays up to 10% commission and uses a 14-day tracking cookie.
