Note: This article focuses on the Japanese Mother's Day gifting market, including references to Japan's Golden Week holiday period and Japan-specific retailers, services, and consumer survey data. While Mother's Day itself is widely celebrated, the market data and campaign examples below are specific to Japan.
For e-commerce businesses, Mother's Day is one of the seasonal events with the biggest impact on sales. However, simply "running a campaign" without a plan makes it hard to stand out from competitors.
This article organizes Mother's Day gift market trends based on the latest research, the types of campaign tactics, concrete case studies, and key considerations when running a campaign. If you're an e-commerce manager planning your Mother's Day campaign, we hope you find this useful.
Latest Trends in the Mother's Day Gift Market
First, let's look at the latest trends in the Mother's Day gift market in recent years.
Diversifying Gift Choices
Flower gifts such as carnations are the classic choice for Mother's Day, but gift options have expanded significantly in recent years.
According to a March 2026 consumer survey published by the Mother's Day information site "Hahanohi.me," the most popular gift category for Mother's Day was "food and gourmet items" (26.1%), with "flowers and houseplants" coming in second (20.5%). This was followed by "sweets" (17.2%), "health and household goods" (7.8%), "fashion and accessories" (6.2%), and "cosmetics and skincare products" (5.0%).
Source: [2026 Edition] What Would You Like to Give This Mother's Day? (Mother's Day Survey)
While flowers remain a top choice, a wide range of categories — including food, sweets, and practical items — are also being selected. This means Mother's Day is a substantial opportunity even for businesses outside the floral industry.
Gift Consideration Peaks Around Golden Week
There's also data worth noting on when people begin considering gift purchases. The same survey found that the most common time to start actively looking for a gift was "late April (before Golden Week)" at 26.9%, followed by "early May (during Golden Week)" at 24.9%. Combined, these two periods account for more than half of respondents, showing that gift consideration peaks around Japan's Golden Week holiday period.
Meanwhile, about 20% of respondents start earlier, in "early April" (13.2%) or "March" (5.6%). Roughly 13% also start looking just before or on Mother's Day itself, showing there's a meaningful group of last-minute shoppers as well.
Source: [FY2026] Mother's Day Survey
Yahoo! search data for 2024 published by LY Corporation also shows that search volume for "Mother's Day gift" peaks on Mother's Day itself.
The key seems to be capturing early planners with early-bird tactics, while also having a plan ready to catch last-minute shoppers.
Campaign Tactics You Can Use for Mother's Day
Mother's Day campaign approaches can be grouped into a few patterns. Understanding the characteristics of each makes it easier to choose the tactic that fits your products and target audience.
Discount and Coupon Campaigns
Distributing limited-time coupons or offering discounts is one of the easier campaigns to implement. A deadline like "before Mother's Day" tends to encourage purchases, but relying too heavily on discounting carries the risk of affecting your brand image.
Limiting the offer to members or newsletter subscribers can help preserve a sense of exclusivity. In recent years, the practice of setting up staged discounts from March through April — a "super-early-bird" approach — to encourage early purchases has also become more common.
Limited-Edition Products and Gift Set Campaigns
Elements like "available now only" or "Mother's Day exclusive" are often the deciding factor in gift selection. Limited packaging or gift sets combining multiple products pair well with e-commerce sites.
Even just giving packaging a Mother's Day design can create a seasonal feel, making this an approach that's easy to adopt even when large-scale new product development isn't feasible.
Social Media Participation Campaigns
Hashtag-post campaigns and follow-and-repost campaigns are tactics that can boost brand awareness and grow your follower count at the same time. Mother's Day's theme of "expressing gratitude" pairs naturally with social media, tending to generate a lot of user-generated posts.
By designing a clear path from the campaign to your e-commerce site, you can more easily turn buzz into purchases in one continuous flow. In particular, instant-win formats (where winners are revealed immediately) have a low barrier to entry, and designing them to allow daily entries makes it easier to create ongoing touchpoints with customers.
Campaigns Using Social Gifting
Using social gifting services like LINE Gift is another approach getting attention. Because these let you send a gift to someone without knowing their address, they're a good fit for meeting the need to casually deliver "a small token of appreciation."
Having a sales channel through social gifting in addition to your own e-commerce site lowers the barrier to purchase and helps you reach more potential customers.
Mother's Day Campaign Case Studies
Here are a few examples of actual Mother's Day campaigns that have been run.
An Example of Boosting Awareness by Linking Social Media and E-commerce
Shu Uemura (L'Oréal Japan) ran a Mother's Day campaign in which users who followed the brand and reposted on Twitter (now X) were entered to win a limited-edition cleansing oil.
The post included a link to the brand's e-commerce site labeled "Shop the Mother's Day limited kit here." Rather than stopping at a simple giveaway, the design presented users who reposted with a "limited set you can buy right now" at the linked page. It's a useful reference for a flow that naturally guides participants to a purchase page.
To turn a social media campaign into e-commerce sales, it's important not to just let it end with "getting shared," but to build in a mechanism that naturally guides participants to a purchase page. Pairing the campaign with an e-commerce-exclusive product is one effective way to build that path.
Reference: Shu Uemura's X post
An Example of Expanding the Purchase Experience with Limited Gift Sets and E-gift
Image source: Francfranc
Francfranc runs a Mother's Day feature offering gift sets tailored for Mother's Day, such as body care sets and handheld fan-and-parasol combinations. A notable feature of the design is that it reduces the difficulty of choosing a gift by presenting options by type, such as "for the beauty-conscious mom" or "for the mom who loves to cook."
The company's online store also supports e-gift (social gifting). This combination — using limited sets to boost product appeal while using e-gift to lower the barrier to purchase — is a structure that e-commerce businesses can readily learn from.
The blog article below introduces how to implement e-gift on Shopify. If you're considering adding e-gift functionality, please check it out.
An Example of Driving Early Purchases with Early-Bird Discounts and Point Rewards
Image source: Kuzefuku Shoten
Kuzefuku Shoten is running an online-store-exclusive early-bird campaign ahead of Mother's Day 2026. During the campaign period from April 1 to 19, Mother's Day limited sets are offered at 10% off, and customers who select early delivery on or before May 6 receive 200 bonus points.
The key takeaway from this example is combining "a discount" with "point rewards" so that buying earlier becomes more rewarding. On top of that, the featured products arrive with Mother's Day–themed wrapping bands and a message card, adding a special touch as a gift.
Food and gourmet products, unlike flowers, are less affected by seasonal timing, making them easier to promote with early-bird discount tactics — a useful reference point.
The blog article below introduces how to run early-bird discounts (limited-time sales) on Shopify. If you're considering an early-bird discount tactic, please check it out.
Key Considerations When Running a Mother's Day Campaign
Planning ahead of time is essential to running a successful Mother's Day campaign. Here are three key considerations to keep in mind.
Start Preparing by Working Backward from March
About 20% of consumers start taking action in early April or earlier. If you plan to launch your campaign in earnest in April, it's ideal to finish planning and product preparation by the end of March at the latest.
When you factor in updating product pages, setting up feature banners, pre-announcing via newsletter or LINE, and producing social media creative, the list of preparation tasks turns out to be larger than expected. Making a checklist of internal tasks ahead of time will help things go smoothly.
Clarify Your Inventory and Shipping Plans
Mother's Day tends to concentrate orders into a short period, raising the risk of stockouts and shipping delays. Since "will it arrive by Mother's Day" is often the deciding factor in a purchase, it's important to clearly display the final order date and estimated arrival date on product pages and the cart page.
Announcing potential delays due to weather or logistics issues in advance can help prevent problems after purchase. Offering a delivery date selection option can also boost customer confidence.
Design a Follow-up Path for After the Campaign Ends
Mother's Day campaigns tend to be short, concentrated pushes, and once the event ends, the connection with customers can easily fade. To make the most of the buyers and social media followers you've gained, it's important to plan a follow-up path in advance for after the campaign wraps up.
For example, you could send a thank-you email or LINE message to buyers with information about Father's Day or mid-year gift-giving, or build ongoing touchpoints by requesting reviews or surveys. Keeping an eye not just on the campaign's own sales, but on the repeat purchases it can lead to afterward, will increase the overall value of your efforts.
Summary
The Mother's Day gift market has expanded its range of options from flower-centric gifts to food, beauty products, and practical items. While gift consideration peaks around Golden Week, a meaningful segment of shoppers starts early as well.
Given these trends, e-commerce businesses running Mother's Day campaigns should focus on capturing early demand with early-bird offers and limited sets, expanding reach through social media and social gifting, and thoroughly preparing on the inventory and shipping side.
Start by picking one tactic that fits your products and target audience, and give it a try this Mother's Day.
