[For EC Businesses] Keiro no Hi Campaign Tactics: 2026 Schedule and Customer Acquisition Methods

Note: This article covers "Keiro no Hi" (Respect for the Aged Day), a national holiday specific to Japan. This custom and its timing do not exist in most other markets.

Keiro no Hi (Respect for the Aged Day) is an event where demand rises for gifts expressing gratitude toward grandparents and parents. Demand tends to move around food and practical items, making it one of the shopping seasons where a well-built feature page and gift tactics can readily translate into sales.

E-commerce is a particularly good fit for Keiro no Hi, since it makes it easy to send a gift to family members living far away.

This article organizes everything from the basics of a Keiro no Hi campaign to customer acquisition methods based on a realistic implementation schedule. It summarizes points that are easy to put into practice when planning your own Keiro no Hi campaign.

What Is a Keiro no Hi Campaign?

A Keiro no Hi campaign is a promotional tactic aimed at capturing gift demand for expressing gratitude toward grandparents and the parent generation, timed around Keiro no Hi, which falls on the third Monday of September.

Keiro no Hi is a national holiday, falling on September 21 in 2026. Japan's Cabinet Office designates September 15 through 21 each year as "Elderly Week," a period when demand naturally arises for gifts, visits, meals together, and other ways of expressing gratitude.

Source: Cabinet Office: About Each National Holiday

Market Size and E-commerce Demand

Market size statistics specific to Keiro no Hi alone are limited, but the overall gift market is large, representing demand e-commerce businesses shouldn't overlook. Yano Research Institute puts Japan's domestic gift market size at 11.565 trillion yen for 2025, with a projected 11.775 trillion yen for 2026. As the overall gift market grows, the importance of feature pages and product suggestions timed to seasonal events keeps rising.

Source: Yano Research Institute, "Survey on the Gift Market (2025)"

Looking at where people buy Keiro no Hi gifts, a 2025 survey found that "online shopping" was chosen by over half of respondents at 51.0%, far outpacing department stores at 14.3%. Being easy to order from even when the recipient lives far away, easy to comparison-shop, and easy to schedule delivery for all point to why e-commerce and Keiro no Hi pair so well.

Source: EC no Mikata, Online Shopping Is the Top Purchase Channel for Keiro no Hi Gifts

Buyer Characteristics

Buyers of Keiro no Hi gifts are mainly the children and grandchildren giving to grandparents, but in practice, plenty of people also give to their own parents. A 2025 survey found that 78.8% of people had given a Keiro no Hi gift before, with "grandmother" being the most common recipient. There are also cases where mothers and fathers are the intended recipients. Rather than targeting grandparents exclusively, messaging that also includes the parent generation is effective.

In addition, 81.8% of people said they prioritize "the recipient's preferences" when choosing a gift — the top consideration — and the most popular gift category was "food and gourmet items" at 41.4%. A large share, 75.8%, give the gift as a surprise, indicating a tendency to choose without checking closely with the recipient beforehand. For e-commerce, it's important to organize food, flowers, practical items, and health-conscious products in a way that's easy to browse by recipient and generation.

Source: [Keiro no Hi Survey] Over 80% Give Gifts Without Asking What the Recipient Wants Beforehand! Most Choose Thoughtfully.|Groov Inc.

Source: [Keiro no Hi Survey] Grandmothers Overwhelmingly Outnumber Grandfathers as Recipients! Keironohi.jp, a Keiro no Hi gift information media outlet, publishes its 2025 survey results. | Groov Inc.

When to Start Preparing for a Keiro no Hi Campaign

A Keiro no Hi campaign isn't a single-day promotion — it's a short, concentrated event where demand rises from August through mid-September. In particular, 2026 has September 21 as Keiro no Hi, September 22 as a holiday, and September 23 as Autumn Equinox Day, so this particular calendar layout makes it easier to expect demand tied to trips home and family activities.

Schedule from Preparation to Sale End

Here's a rough schedule:

• Early August: Select products and decide on wrapping specifications
• Mid-August: Publish the feature page and marketing creative
• Early September: Begin customer acquisition via newsletter and social media
• From the second week of September: Capture last-minute demand with messaging like "still time to order" or "fastest delivery available"

Especially throughout September, offering early-bird discounts, free-shipping thresholds, and limited sets makes it easier to capture undecided shoppers.

Clearly stating when sales end is also important for seasonal campaigns like Keiro no Hi. Making the cutoff for delivery on Keiro no Hi itself, whether delivery is possible during the holiday stretch, and the final acceptance date for message-card requests all clear helps shoppers who are still comparing options make a decision.

Messaging Points for a Keiro no Hi Campaign

For Keiro no Hi, you need messaging that goes beyond product specs to help the shopper picture who they're giving to and with what feelings.

Building a Feature Page

Feature pages often lead by clearly stating "when Keiro no Hi falls this year" and "the order deadline to make it in time," followed by navigation organized by recipient, category, and price.

For example, Rakuten Ichiba's Keiro no Hi feature (a 2023 example) presented not just popular staple products, but also products organized by category and budget, brand gifts, and experience-based catalog gifts — a design that let shoppers browse from multiple angles. Since choosing what to give for Keiro no Hi can be difficult, offering several different ways to browse like this makes it easier for shoppers to find something that fits.

Source: Rakuten Publishes "Rakuten Ichiba Keiro no Hi Feature 2023"

Product Copy

It's important to incorporate usage scenes that fit Keiro no Hi.

• Individually wrapped for easy sharing among family
• Soft and easy to eat
• Shelf-stable and easy to receive
• Comes with a message that conveys gratitude

Phrasing like this gives shoppers something concrete to base their decision on.

For Keiro no Hi gifts, it's important for your copy to speak not just to taste and price, but to the recipient's lifestyle and how easy the gift is to receive. Especially for food and everyday items, weaving in perspectives like "who will they share it with," "can they use it without any hassle," and "will the gesture come across when they receive it" makes it easier to communicate the product's appeal.

Gift Tactics Worth Adding to a Keiro no Hi Campaign

For Keiro no Hi, beyond price appeal, presentation that turns feelings like "gratitude comes through" or "something the whole family can enjoy" into something concrete drives sales. Adding gift-specific touches like wrapping and personalization makes products more likely to be chosen than simply listing your regular lineup.

Wrapping and Message Cards

For Keiro no Hi, it's not just the product itself that matters — how you deliver the gratitude matters too. Letting shoppers choose from free message cards, noshi (traditional gift wrapping), and wrapping paper suited to the recipient can raise satisfaction with the gift. In particular, since Keiro no Hi gifts are often given to older relatives, noshi is an element that conveys courtesy and formality effectively. It clearly signals who the gift is for, which also helps convey that it's an appropriate gift.

Using Personalized Products

Personalized products pair well with an event like Keiro no Hi, where the goal is to give feelings tangible form. That said, personalization is prone to delivery delays, so it needs a separate deadline from standard shipping. A safe design is to split it as "personalization requests accepted through September X" and "standard shipping accepted through September X for same-day arrival." Keeping personalized products in their own category on your feature page also makes comparison easier.

Using a product options app is an efficient way to add personalization to your Shopify product pages. Since you can easily add a text input field, you can support personalization while keeping development costs down. Recommended apps are covered in detail in the article below.

Customer Acquisition Methods for a Keiro no Hi Campaign

Customer acquisition is easier to design if you separate re-engaging existing customers from capturing new demand. Since the consideration period for Keiro no Hi is short, messaging tied to time-based deadlines tends to drive results more directly than audience segmentation.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is especially effective for reaching existing customers with a history of gift purchases around events like Mother's Day, Father's Day, or Ochugen (mid-year gift giving).

Timed to your sending schedule, clear subject lines like "Keiro no Hi gift feature now live," "early-bird offer ending soon," or "fastest delivery — still time to order" work well. Designing your sends in stages — announcing the campaign page, highlighting popular rankings, and reminding people of the purchase deadline — helps ensure you reach shoppers who might otherwise forget to buy.

Shopify's customer segmentation feature currently doesn't support filtering by order tags. As a workaround, you can use Shopify Flow to set up a workflow in advance that "adds the customer tag gift user to the purchaser when a gift product is ordered," making it easier to extract your target customers.

LINE Messaging

LINE is a channel that pairs well with short-term reminder tactics. Since it tends to become a regular touchpoint between your brand and users, it's also well suited to preventing last-minute forgetting right before Keiro no Hi.

Rather than long messages, clear, purpose-driven ones work better — "Keiro no Hi gift feature now live," "shop card-included products here," or "order today to make it in time."

When featuring multiple products, using a carousel-format message makes it easier to guide users to individual product or category pages.

Sample: Carousel-format LINE message

Carousel-format messages can be built with JSON code. Sidekick also supports generating JSON code, so a prompt like "create a LINE message in carousel format" can produce a template for your message.

Sidekick: instructing it to create a LINE message

Social Media Ads

Compared with events aimed at younger audiences, social media ads for Keiro no Hi are easier to target at people in their late 30s through early 60s. Since the main buyers are the children and grandchildren giving the gift, splitting your creative by recipient — "giving to grandmother" versus "giving to parents," for example — makes your messaging land more clearly.

Shopify's campaign feature is convenient for measuring results. Setting up your Keiro no Hi tactic as a single campaign, with links carrying separate UTM parameters for each platform like Instagram or Facebook, makes it easy to compare which platform or message actually drove orders and sales.

You can also use automatic matching rules to group specific UTM conditions under the same campaign, which helps keep things organized even when you're running ads across multiple channels.

Early on, it's important not to narrow your targeting too much — adjust based on how your messaging and creative are performing.

About Campaigns | Shopify Help Center

Purchase-Boosting Tactics Worth Adding to a Keiro no Hi Campaign

Since the Keiro no Hi selling window is limited, it's important to prioritize tactics that can drive results even in a short period. Among these, designing gift-oriented set products is a key point that can significantly affect both conversion rate and average order value.

Cross-Sell Tactics

Cross-selling — suggesting products related to a main item — is an effective way to raise average order value in a Keiro no Hi campaign.

Compared to buying something for yourself, gift purchases tend to come with a mindset of "since I'm giving a gift anyway, I'd like to add one more item." Naturally suggesting related products on the cart page or product page makes it easier to increase the number of items purchased.

Apps like the Shopify app "Qikify Upsell & Cross Sell," which display recommended combinations as pop-ups on recommendation widgets and cart pages, can help maximize your campaign's impact. Setup steps are covered in "What Is the Shopify App 'Qikify Cart Upsell & Free Gift'? A Guide to Setup and Usage."

Source: Qikify Upsell & Cross Sell | Shopify App Store

Set/Bundle Sales

Selling products as sets is a tactic that can raise average order value while also making shopping easier. Rather than listing single items, organizing them into sets tailored to use case or recipient makes it easier to encourage a purchase.

When designing sets, key points include splitting them by price band (around 3,000 yen or around 5,000 yen, for example), clearly stating shipping conditions like shelf-stable versus refrigerated, and adding a Keiro no Hi–exclusive touch.

Beyond organizing by product type — "food," "sweets," "health," "practical items" — messaging by recipient, like "for grandmother," "for grandfather," or "for parents," also makes it easier for shoppers to choose, since deciding what to give for Keiro no Hi can be difficult.

Shopify offers its own official app for set sales, "Shopify Bundles," making it easy to add bundled products. Features and usage are covered in "What Is Shopify's Bundle Sales App 'Shopify Bundles'? Features and How to Use It."

Source: Shopify Bundles | Shopify App Store

Driving Repeat Purchases Through Post-Purchase Follow-Up

Designing your post-purchase follow-up is essential to driving ongoing purchases.

For example, designing touchpoints such as a delivery confirmation email, a review request, and information about a coupon for next time makes it easier to naturally encourage a repeat purchase. Shoppers who bought food or gift items for Keiro no Hi may well make repeat purchases for other gift-giving seasons like Oseibo (year-end gifts), the New Year, Mother's Day, or Father's Day.

Rather than treating Keiro no Hi as a one-off event, it's valuable to use it as an entry point for building a relationship with "customers who give seasonal gifts." Designing it as a touchpoint that connects to the year-end shopping season and future gift demand makes it easier to build on with future offers.

The benefits of adding a review feature and recommended apps are covered in detail in "The Benefits of Adding a Review Feature to Shopify, Plus Recommended Review Apps."

Summary

A Keiro no Hi campaign is a seasonal event well suited to giving gratitude tangible form, and one where e-commerce businesses can expect meaningful gift demand.

It's also not just a one-time promotional opportunity — it can become a touchpoint that connects to year-end gifting and later seasonal tactics. Building navigation that's easy to browse by recipient, and clearly showing deadlines and shipping conditions, makes gifts easier to choose and easier to send. Use a Keiro no Hi campaign strategically as an entry point into the fall and winter shopping season.