How high-consideration brands like Terra Kaffe are navigating a value-driven holiday season
Sahand Dilmaghani, founder of espresso machine company Terra Kaffe, estimates that as much as 45% of his business comes from the last six to eight weeks of the year. But he’s already marketed to those shoppers for months on platforms like YouTube, Pinterest and Facebook.
“It’s a purchase that’s highly considered,” he said. “People might start at the beginning… of the year thinking about it. And there’s a lot of people who get it for the household, and it becomes the hero gift of the year.”
While many brands might find the holiday season is their best performing quarter, this is particularly true among high-ticket and high-consideration purchases. That’s largely because of the Black Friday season of discounts and deals, which appeal to shoppers looking to make an upgrade. In response, some brands find that early outreach — or even early sales events — are paying off.
Terra Kaffe, founded in 2018, makes sleek automatic espresso machines sold for $795, and in 2022 launched its app-enabled, connected brewer for around $1,495. Holiday deals this year include $100 or $200 off when also signing up for a coffee subscription. Dilmaghani said that nearly half the company’s marketing spend for the holiday season is going to paid social, with as much as a 6% increase over last year on Pinterest ads alone due to how shoppers use that platform for research.
Ads are simplistic, showing the coffee machine in the early morning hours of the kitchen.
“We really focused on just getting the word out there,” Dilmaghani said. “It’s not really transactionally-focused engagement or advertising. It’s really trying to get the name out there as much as possible, and hoping it will segue nicely into the key season and transaction-oriented period.”
Beyond espresso machines, high-consideration products like mattresses and televisions are well-known for having discounts around the holiday season. Bella Gerard, shopping and trend advisor at Rakuten, said many shoppers are using holiday deals to prioritize buying for themselves. “People know holidays and Black Friday are the time to splurge on the bigger items,” she said.
A new Rakuten survey conducted with The Harris Poll found that one in three holiday shoppers are gifting themselves first before buying presents for others. The trend is even more pronounced among younger generations, with 59% of Gen Z shoppers saying they would reduce their gift budget to buy more for themselves. “Only Gen Z would admit to that stat,” Gerard said. “It doesn’t mean they won’t be shopping for other people, but they’re going out of their way to buy anything lavish, or to stock up.”
Mattress company Naturepedic is already seeing record sales this year as shoppers look to take advantage of deals on products they’ve been eyeing. The company’s vice president of sales and marketing, Arin Schultz, said Naturepedic saw its biggest October on record this year thanks to a 20% off sitewide fall sale. It offerered higher discounts than usual, in part because customers were watching for it.
“We were hearing from a lot of consumers who were asking, ‘When does your Black Friday sale start?’ and ‘What’s the best deal I can get now to avoid the holiday rush?'” Schultz said. “We decided to offer a pre-holiday promotion, which turned out to be very successful.”
Since then, Naturepedic is still seeing web traffic increase, presumably ahead of anticipated Black Friday deals. It will push out paid social and search ads, but also focus on out-of-home opportunities like billboards near its roughly 30 retail stores.
Around 53% of customers prefer to start their mattress shopping in person even though only 24% end up purchasing in person, Schultz said — meaning getting people in store is a key part of how to close a sale. In response, Naturepedic will be offering holiday-exclusive giveaways tied to the launch of its bedding line in select markets like Bellevue, Portland, and La Jolla where it has newer, larger stores, hoping that translates to sales down the line.
“Consumers are doing their research,” Schultz said. “Mattresses aren’t an impulse buy, and our customers want to make informed purchases.”