When should a med spa order holiday gifts?
A week-by-week plan from BOTOX Cosmetic Day (Nov. 18) to January, built around the gift-card visits that land after the holidays.
Approve anything you want in hand by mid-December by Friday, Nov. 13. Branded pieces take 10 to 15 business days after you approve the mockup, Thanksgiving takes a day out of that, and shipping adds about a week. Anything approved later is better planned for January, which is where most of this season's value shows up anyway.
The holidays are a January plan
Gift cards are the core of a med spa's holiday season. They also move the work. A card sold on Cyber Monday is cash in November and an appointment in January or February, the thinnest months of the year for many practices. The person holding it may never have been to your practice.
That person matters. In a 2026 survey by The Strawhecker Group and Bank of America, 55% of U.S. consumers said a gift card would get them to try a new business, and 44% said they usually spend more than the card is worth. AmSpa's 2024 industry report found about three in four med spa clients are repeat clients. Put those together and the goal is plain: the gift-card visit in January should become a second visit.
So plan backward from that visit. What does a first-timer see, keep and take home, and who books their next appointment before they leave?
BOTOX Cosmetic Day: someone else's offer, your front desk
BOTOX Cosmetic Day is Allergan Aesthetics' yearly promotion, held on the third Wednesday of November. In 2026 that's Wednesday, Nov. 18. The offers run through Allē, Allergan's loyalty program, which reports 8 million members and 30,000 participating U.S. practices. In 2025 the headline offer was a free $50 gift card when a member bought one. The 2026 offer hadn't been announced when we wrote this.
The offer carries Allergan's brand. What carries yours is everything around it: the phone call, the person at the desk, the aftercare card that goes home. If you're taking part, expect a busy week and treat it as a preview of January. Some of the people who book that week are new to you.
Week by week
Now to Fri., Nov. 13: decide, count and approve. This is the step that sets every date after it. Whoever does the ordering, often the office manager, needs three numbers, and your booking system has all of them:
- Gift card holders. How many cards you sold last November and December. That's the count for envelopes or boxes.
- Clients to thank. Pick a rule, such as everyone with three or more visits this year, and count them. That's the count for a year-end gift.
- Team. Everyone on payroll, including part-timers.
Order for the list you have, not the one you hope for. And keep the year off anything you put your logo on. A gift-card envelope with no date on it is still good next November.
Week of Nov. 16: BOTOX Cosmetic Day (Wed., Nov. 18). Busy phones, more first visits than usual. Two things help: the team in matching scrubs, which is also what shows up in every photo and story that week, and an aftercare card with your logo and number for every treatment.
Nov. 27 to Nov. 30: Black Friday through Cyber Monday. Gift card week. A gift card is handed from one person to another, so how it looks matters more than what it is. A card in a branded envelope with one line on how to book reads as a gift. A printout reads as a receipt. This is also the latest realistic approval date for pieces before the holidays, and only on the fast end of our timeline.
Dec. 1 to Dec. 18: thank the regulars. Client gifts and appreciation events land here. Pick things that become part of a routine: a robe, a headband, a face towel set, a good tote. Keep the mark small and stitched. If you hold an open house, product reps often bring the prizes, but the bags and packaging are usually yours. Mailing gifts? USPS's suggested 2026 cutoffs are Dec. 17 for Ground Advantage and Dec. 18 for Priority Mail.
Late December into February: the gift-card visits. Brief the front desk before the holidays. When someone books with a gift card, ask whether it's their first visit. If it is, that client gets the full treatment: a clean robe, an aftercare card they'll keep, a pouch for anything they buy. And book the next appointment before they leave the chair, not after they get home.
January: packages and the team. New-year bookings are a good time to offer a series instead of a single visit. It's also when many practices hire ahead of spring. If a new hire starts in February, order their scrubs in January, not the week they start.
What it's worth spending on
If the budget only covers one thing, put it where a new client meets you. In order:
- Gift card presentation, because it's the first thing a new client holds.
- The aftercare card, because it goes home and gets kept.
- The first-visit robe and a take-home pouch.
- A year-end gift for your regulars.
Our minimums start at 12 to 15 pieces per item, and the quote is the price, with no setup or digitizing fees added later. To have pieces before the holidays, the mockup needs to be approved by Nov. 13. Book a 15-minute call and we'll help you size the order.