Love Notes Peak as Mother's Day Gifting Enters Final Days

Somewhere between choosing the right necklace and writing the perfect note, something shifted this week. Nearly half of all gift messages are now full of love. Not just warm. Not polite. The kind of notes where children pour their hearts out to their mothers, thanking them for a lifetime of support and devotion.

Seasonal gifting has climbed for five consecutive weeks, and this week it reached 27% of all gifts, nearly double its 14% baseline share. Behind almost all of that momentum sits a single occasion: Mother's Day, which accounts for 95% of seasonal gifts right now. With Mother's Day arriving tomorrow in Spain and Portugal, and next Sunday across North America, Australia, and New Zealand, the final countdown is producing some of the most emotionally rich gifting of the spring.

Nearly half of all gift notes this week are full of love. Five weeks ago, that figure was closer to four in ten.

Five weeks of building emotion

The numbers confirm what the notes already made clear. Notes full of love now account for 48% of all gift messages, up from 42% in the baseline period. That shift didn't happen overnight. It built steadily across five weeks as Mother's Day drew closer, each week adding emotional weight to the gifts moving through Shopify stores.

Family members are behind 58% of all gifting this week. Children and grandchildren are sending art supplies, birthstone necklaces, and prayer books with notes that read like letters rather than card messages. In the US, sons are thanking their mothers for a lifetime of care. In Turkey, daughters are writing deeply personal notes about love and support. In Malta, families are choosing commemorative keepsakes alongside gifts that carry religious and personal meaning.

This is what the lead-up to Mother's Day actually looks like in the gift notes: not a spike in generic occasion gifting, but a slow, steady building of personal expression. Shoppers aren't just buying gifts. They're writing things they might not say out loud.

Every market tells a different story

Mother's Day bends the gifting calendar wherever it lands, but the degree varies wildly. In the US, 41% of all gifts this week are tied to a seasonal occasion. Malta is even higher at 45%. Australia sits at 34%, with birthdays still holding the lead at 38%.

Then there's the UK, where 65% of gifts are for birthdays and seasonal gifting barely registers. That's not indifference; it's calendar math. The UK celebrated Mother's Day back in March. The spring gifting season there runs on a completely different rhythm, and this week's data makes that contrast sharp. While American shoppers are writing love letters to their mothers, British shoppers are picking out birthday gifts for friends.

New Zealand offers its own texture. Seasonal gifting sits at 30% there, tied exactly with birthdays. But congratulations gifts make up 16% of all New Zealand gifting this week, more than double the 6% global average. Something beyond Mother's Day is driving celebration in that market.

What this means for merchants

For stores in the US, Australia, Malta, and New Zealand, the next eight days are the peak window. Seasonal gifting didn't just rise this week; it has been building for over a month. Merchants who make it easy for shoppers to add a personal note alongside their purchase are meeting a clear need. People want to say something meaningful, and they're choosing stores that let them.

Jewelry stores are leading overall at 27% of gifting, followed by food and beverage at 17%. Necklaces are the single most-gifted product at 16%. But the emotional signal stretches across every category. Whether a store sells candles, books, or handmade soap, the shoppers showing up right now are writing notes full of love to their mothers. That's not a product trend. That's a human one, and it will carry through next weekend.