The Shift from Traditional Holiday Jewelry to Custom Holiday Cups

Dec 9, 2025 by Iris POD Dropshipping Tips

Holiday gifting used to follow a predictable script. If you wanted to signal love, status, or a major life moment, you bought jewelry. Necklaces, rings, and watches were the default “serious” gifts, especially around Christmas and Valentine’s Day. As someone who has mentored e-commerce founders across jewelry, print-on-demand, and corporate gifting, I saw this pattern in store data for years: jewelry consistently sat at the top of average order value and emotional importance.

Over the last few seasons, though, something interesting has happened. Personalized gift data has exploded, younger consumers have redefined what “luxury” means, and a very humble object has started stealing share of wallet: the custom holiday cup or tumbler. When I audit Q4 sales for print-on-demand brands today, it is common to see a $25 personalized tumbler outperform a $200 necklace, both in units and in repeat orders.

This is not a story of jewelry dying. The global jewelry market was worth more than $350 billion in 2023 and is still forecast to grow roughly 4.7% annually through 2030 according to industry analysis from Brenton Way. It is a story about where incremental growth, daily visibility, and scalable personalization are moving. For founders in on-demand printing and dropshipping, understanding this shift is not a creative preference; it is a strategic decision that affects your product roadmap, marketing mix, and operations for the next five years.

In this article, I will unpack why traditional jewelry has been losing ground as the default holiday “big gift,” why customized cups and tumblers are winning baskets and corporate budgets, and how to pragmatically reposition your e-commerce brand to ride this shift rather than be surprised by it.

Why Jewelry Ruled Holiday Gifting For So Long

To understand the shift, you first have to respect the incumbent. Jewelry earned its place at the top of the gifting hierarchy for structural reasons, not just tradition.

Jewelry has historically been the most efficient way to condense emotional meaning, status, and longevity into a single object. Research from National Jeweler on affluent U.S. households found that among the wealthiest 10 percent of consumers, nearly a quarter planned to give jewelry or watches as holiday gifts, and among the top 1 percent that figure climbed above 30 percent. Among affluent millennials specifically, jewelry and watches beat out experiences and even travel as the most intended holiday gift category. That tells you how strongly jewelry has been associated with “this really matters.”

Custom jewelers have doubled down on this emotion. Retailers like Jaes Jewelers position custom holiday jewelry as the most meaningful gift of the season precisely because it is built around personal details: birthstones, initials, engraved dates, and symbols that anchor family stories. When someone commissions a pendant using their children’s or grandchildren’s birthstones, they are not buying metal and stones; they are buying a future heirloom and a story they can retell each time they wear it. In my work with founders in this space, average lead times of several weeks are not a bug; they are part of the perceived value, reinforcing the idea that “this was made just for you.”

On the industry level, jewelry has also been quick to embrace personalization, inclusivity, and technology. Brenton Way notes that consumers are gravitating toward personalized, handcrafted, ethical, and sustainable jewelry, with millennials and Gen Z driving demand for pieces that reflect identity and values. Gender-neutral collections, lab-grown diamonds, and “modern heirloom” positioning have all helped keep jewelry culturally relevant. Brands have layered in digital tools like augmented reality try-ons, virtual appointments, and mobile apps to capture omnichannel demand.

Custom jewelry buyer data underscores how strong the category remains for self-expression and gifting. Analysis from Sairahaz suggests that millennials account for roughly 45 percent of custom jewelry buyers and Gen Z about 35 percent, with women representing around 70 percent of purchases and an estimated 70 percent of custom jewelry being bought as gifts. About 60 percent of buyers purchase custom jewelry online, and nearly half of those purchases are directly influenced by social media. That is not a declining category; it is a structurally healthy one.

So if jewelry is still strong, why are founders seeing such outsized momentum in custom holiday cups and tumblers?

personalized tumblers versus jewelry for holiday gifts

The Personalization Economy And The Gifting Paradox

The answer lies less in jewelry itself and more in how gifting and personalization have evolved.

Several pieces of research point to a simple but brutal truth: consumers are tired of generic gifts. GiftAFeeling’s analysis of global gift giving estimates that while the global gift industry is worth over $70 billion in 2024, more than $9.5 billion is wasted every year on unwanted gifts. The average person wastes about $71 on presents that are not appreciated. When you think about your own junk drawer of corporate swag and forgotten trinkets, that figure feels believable.

At the same time, personalization has moved from novelty to expectation. McKinsey research cited in Compartés’ work on Gen Z gifting shows that about 71 percent of consumers now expect personalized interactions from brands, and roughly 76 percent feel frustration when those expectations are not met. Nearly a third of consumers have abandoned loyalty programs because they felt impersonal. This is not “nice to have” territory; it is a minimum standard.

Younger consumers are leading this shift. Dotdash Meredith’s research on new luxury consumers found that Gen Z ranks expensiveness only in the middle of the pack when defining luxury attributes and cares more about how a product makes them feel than how much it costs. McKinsey’s segmentation work suggests a growing share of consumers are “image-focused,” prioritizing self-expression and emotional connection over price. Bain and Company projects that Gen Z and millennials together will account for about 70 percent of global luxury purchases by 2030, but the story they are buying is less about logos and more about identity, mission, and worth.

GiftAFeeling’s statistics paint the same picture on the gifting side. The global personalized gifts market was valued at about $40.93 billion in 2022, is projected to reach roughly $51.98 billion by 2024, and could hit around $138.17 billion by 2030, growing at nearly 13 percent annually over that period. Around 65 percent of consumers have purchased personalized gifts, 80 percent believe personalized gifts are more thoughtful, and 42 percent plan to buy more of them. OWD’s research on personalized gifts adds that consumers are willing to pay about a 25 percent premium for personalized items, about half believe customized products make ideal gifts, and nearly half are willing to wait longer to receive a personalized product. Across Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, and even baby boomers, interest in personalization remains well above 50 percent.

In the U.S. specifically, Research and Markets estimates the personalized gifting market at about $9.69 billion in 2024, with a forecast to reach approximately $14.56 billion by 2030 at around 7 percent compound annual growth. Clothing leads with more than a third of category share, but home décor, stationery, food and beverage, and other items are all participating. Women are the largest revenue-generating end-user group, and online channels are growing at more than 7 percent annually as consumers embrace e-commerce customization tools.

Layer on top of this the overall pressure and complexity of holiday spending. GiftAFeeling reports that the average American plans to spend close to $900 on Christmas gifts, with total holiday outlays near $1,000 once decorations and food are included. Many shoppers report feeling financially strained, even as overall gift spending continues to tick upward. Mastercard’s Shopper Snapshot finds that “value for money” is now the single most important factor in holiday purchases, ahead of quality and even discounts, and that consumers actively combine promotions, loyalty points, and timing to maximize value.

Put all of this together and you get a clear pattern. Consumers, especially younger ones, are seeking gifts that are personal, emotionally resonant, and aligned with their values, but they also have budget constraints and a strong value orientation. They are willing to spend and even pay a premium when something feels “worth it,” but they do not want to waste money on items that will sit untouched.

That is the environment where a well-designed personalized tumbler can credibly compete with a mid-range piece of jewelry for the same gifting dollar.

Why Custom Holiday Cups Fit 2025 Consumer Behavior So Well

Custom tumblers and cups are not new. Corporate swag catalogs have featured branded mugs and bottles for decades. What has changed is the level of personalization, the quality of the product, and the cultural meaning attached to everyday drinkware.

SkylieCreates describes custom tumblers as one of the most popular gift choices in 2025 because they blend everyday utility with personalized, aesthetic design. Typical sizes around 24 fl oz and 40 fl oz slot into daily routines for iced coffee, tea, smoothies, and water at work, school, the gym, and on the go. When a gift becomes part of someone’s morning ritual or desk setup, the emotional and brand exposure multiplies. In my own clients’ order data, you see this in repeat purchases: a customer gifts a tumbler for Christmas, then returns to order matching ones for birthdays or team events after seeing how often the recipient uses it.

Customization options have improved dramatically. SkylieCreates and Coolnicetumbler highlight how modern tumblers can be personalized with names, initials, colors, glitter, birthstone motifs, pet images, and unique artwork using durable UV printing or powder-coated and laser-engraved finishes. Designs are bright, scratch-resistant, waterproof, and long-lasting. Social media has amplified this, with glitter “snow globe” tumblers and pastel aesthetics becoming highly shareable on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Coolnicetumbler goes as far as to compare tumblers to handbags or watches: lifestyle accessories and collectibles, not just drinkware.

Sustainability adds another layer of appeal. Both sources emphasize that reusable stainless steel or acrylic tumblers help reduce single-use cup and bottle waste. For eco-conscious consumers who, according to GiftAFeeling, are already more likely to buy eco-friendly products and prefer gifts that “send a positive message,” a reusable custom cup is more aligned with their values than a disposable or purely decorative item. Functionally, double-wall or vacuum-insulated tumblers can keep drinks cold for many hours, which matters to commuters, office workers, and gym-goers.

Price positioning is also favorable. SkylieCreates frames personalized tumblers as affordable but meaningful: they look premium and custom without requiring a large budget. When you overlay OWD’s finding that consumers are happy to pay a premium for personalization, you get a sweet spot: a 40 custom tumbler that feels like a high-effort, high-thought gift but sits comfortably inside many people’s holiday gift range.

Corporate and bulk gifting is another major driver. Coolnicetumbler notes strong demand for personalized logo tumblers in bulk, from small orders of around 50 units to campaigns in the thousands. Compared with fragile mugs or glassware, tumblers are durable, easy to ship, and act as mobile billboards. Coresight Research’s work on corporate gifting, as discussed in Compartés’ analysis, values the U.S. corporate gifting market at about $258 billion in 2022 with projections up to roughly $312 billion by 2025, and personalized gifting inside that market is forecast to grow at close to 7 percent annually. Companies are shifting from generic swag to more intentional gifts because the data shows that well-executed, personalized luxury gifting programs can dramatically improve client retention and employee engagement.

In that context, a custom tumbler that pairs the company’s design language with the recipient’s name or an in-joke can perform better than a much more expensive but generic gift. It hits personalization, daily utility, sustainability, and value all at once.

Jewelry Versus Custom Cups: A Practical Comparison For Founders

From a founder’s perspective, the shift from traditional jewelry to custom holiday cups is less about which category is “better” and more about which category is better suited to your target customer, operations, and growth model.

The table below summarizes key differences I consistently see when mentoring brands that sell both.

Dimension	Traditional Holiday Jewelry	Custom Holiday Cups and Tumblers
Emotional positioning	Heirloom, milestone, romantic or family symbolism; often reserved for major relationships and occasions	Everyday companion, self-expression, inside jokes, team identity; suitable for a wider range of relationships and events
Price and perceived value	Higher ticket, lower frequency; perceived as “serious” spend; buyers scrutinize materials and stones	Mid-ticket, higher frequency; perceived as “fun but thoughtful”; buyers focus on design, utility, and message
Personalization depth	Deep symbolic personalization through gemstones, engravings, custom designs; long lead times	Visual, name-based, or artwork-driven personalization; fast to design and produce at scale
Usage frequency	Worn often by some recipients, occasionally by others; sometimes stored for special occasions	Used daily at home, work, and on the go; visible to peers, colleagues, and social feeds
Returns and fit	Complex due to sizing, metal sensitivities, expectations around color and stone quality	Simpler; usually “one size fits many,” with fewer fit issues and clearer quality expectations
Production and inventory	Requires careful material sourcing, quality control, and sometimes manual craftsmanship; unsold inventory risk for non-custom SKUs	Well-suited to print-on-demand and make-to-order; lower finished-good inventory risk; stainless steel SKU standardization
Social and UGC potential	Strong, especially for engagement or milestone pieces, but posting frequency is limited by occasion	Extremely strong; cups and tumblers show up in daily stories, desk shots, “what’s in my bag” content, and trend-driven videos

Jewelry still wins when the goal is to mark a major life event or create a piece that can plausibly become a multi-generational heirloom. Custom holiday jewelry, as Jaes Jewelers argues, functions as an “emotional artifact.” But for the majority of holiday gifting scenarios, especially outside of spouses and immediate family, custom cups often align better with what data says consumers want: something personal, practical, moderately priced, and aligned with their identity and values.

Strategic Implications For On-Demand Printing And Dropshipping Brands

If you run or plan to launch an on-demand printing or dropshipping brand, the move from “jewelry-first” thinking to “custom cup-first” thinking has concrete implications.

From a demand standpoint, the personalized gifting numbers are hard to ignore. Research and Markets and other analysts converge on U.S. personalized gifting growing from roughly $9–10 billion today to the mid-teens by 2030, outpacing many traditional categories. GiftAFeeling’s global analysis suggests personalized gifts overall are on a much steeper growth curve than the general gift market. OWD’s data shows consumers are willing to pay more, wait longer, and recommend brands that offer personalization. SkylieCreates and Coolnicetumbler both position custom tumblers as one of the standout products riding this wave.

From a marketing standpoint, tumblers and cups are perfectly tuned to social commerce. Jewelry already performs well on image-centric platforms; CaratX notes that over 80 percent of luxury consumers are influenced by social media and that jewelry’s visual appeal lends itself to platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Tumblers simply add another layer of “everyday relatability.” They feature in desk setups, gym selfies, meal prep videos, and “day in my life” content. When a tumbler design goes viral in a community, reorders and spin-off variants can scale quickly.

From an operational standpoint, custom cups map cleanly onto print-on-demand and dropshipping mechanics. A stainless steel tumbler blank can support many designs; you are not carrying hundreds of different physical SKUs the way a jewelry brand might with different metals, stones, sizes, and styles. Lead times can remain competitive even in Q4 because the production process is standardized. The complexity shifts into artwork management and order routing, both of which are solvable with the right tech stack.

The pain points in personalized gifting are also more manageable in this category. Research and Markets highlights logistics and last-mile delivery as major restraints in the U.S. personalized gifting market, with last-mile often accounting for more than half of transportation costs and around two-fifths of total supply chain costs. Personalized items add complexity with custom packaging and time-sensitive delivery. A fragile handmade necklace or ring might require extra handling and insurance, whereas a properly packed tumbler can withstand typical carrier stress with fewer incidents and lower perceived risk for both you and the customer.

All of that said, there are trade-offs. Jewelry can carry far higher average order values and margins per unit than drinkware. When it works, a successful jewelry product can materially change a small brand’s revenue trajectory. But it also exposes you to higher expectations and more operational risk. In my mentoring work, brands that start with jewelry often underestimate the support burden: sizing questions, metal allergies, returns around minor color differences, and holiday cut-off panic when custom pieces cannot be rushed.

Cups and tumblers, by contrast, tend to generate more modest but steadier streams of revenue, especially when tied into seasonal designs and recurring occasions. They are also more accessible for self-gifting, which GiftAFeeling and others note is a growing behavior; a significant share of consumers now plan to buy gifts for themselves during holiday promotions. A consumer might hesitate before buying themselves another gold necklace but will happily justify a new “winter edition” tumbler.

growth of custom drinkware in ecommerce gifting

How To Evolve Your Brand Without Losing Your Story

The most successful founders I work with do not treat this as an either/or choice. They recognize that jewelry and custom cups occupy different roles in the gifting and self-purchase ecosystem and design their assortments accordingly.

If you are currently a jewelry-first brand, one pragmatic path is to introduce custom cups as story extensions rather than random add-ons. A jeweler focused on family birthstones might launch tumblers featuring subtle birthstone color palettes with family names around the cup. A brand known for modern, minimalist rings could offer sleek, monochrome tumblers with the same typography and aesthetic. The key is to let existing customers say, “That feels like them,” even though the product is new.

Conversely, if you operate a tumbler or drinkware-first brand, there is room to explore jewelry-inspired personalization without jumping straight into fine metals. Think about charm bracelets with the same icons you print on cups, or simple engraved stainless steel pieces that echo your best-selling tumbler slogans. The Internet-plus research on customized jewelry marketing emphasizes how online platforms excel at make-to-order, data-driven personalization, reducing inventory risk compared with mass-produced SKUs. You can apply that same logic with lightweight jewelry experiments driven by your design data.

Regardless of your starting point, a few principles hold.

First, treat personalization as a strategy, not a feature. Consumer research across McKinsey, Dotdash Meredith, GiftAFeeling, and others is unanimous that personalization drives both emotional impact and loyalty. That means building systems to collect preference data ethically, investing in design tooling that makes personalization easy for customers, and designing operations that can execute consistently at peak season.

Second, integrate your products into the holiday narrative customers are already living. NielsenIQ and PwC both emphasize that holiday shopping is now as much about treating oneself and managing stress as it is about gifting others. Brand campaigns that acknowledge budget constraints, value orientation, and the desire for new but meaningful rituals tend to resonate. A jewelry brand can position custom pieces as a way to mark a year of growth; a tumbler brand can position seasonal cups as tools to make each day in a chaotic season a little more joyful or organized.

Third, build omnichannel visibility. Studies from Bazaarvoice and others show that Gen Z and millennials rely heavily on social media, reviews, and user-generated content to discover and evaluate gifts. They may see a tumbler on social, read reviews on your store, and then add it to a cart on a marketplace. Ensure your designs, personalization options, and shipping cut-off messaging are consistent everywhere so the shopper journey feels coherent.

holiday gifting trends custom cups vs jewelry

Frequently Asked Questions From Founders

Is jewelry “over” as a holiday gift?

Jewelry is not over. Market data shows the global jewelry category growing steadily, and survey work from National Jeweler indicates strong ongoing interest among affluent shoppers, especially millennials, in giving and receiving jewelry. What has changed is that jewelry is no longer the only or automatic way to express thoughtfulness and luxury. Personalized gifts of many types, including custom cups, now compete effectively for the same emotional territory in a broader range of relationships and price points. For most brands, the question is not whether to abandon jewelry but how to position it for the occasions where it still has an undisputed edge.

Are custom tumblers and cups just a fad?

Everything trend-led has some cyclical component, but the underlying drivers for custom cups look structural, not fleeting. Consumers are moving toward reusable products, willing to pay for personalization, and increasingly value daily-use items that reflect their identity. Market analysis from Coolnicetumbler notes that tumblers have evolved into lifestyle accessories and collectibles, and SkylieCreates frames them as one of the most popular everyday gifts of 2025. When you combine that with the broader personalized gifting growth figures, it is reasonable to treat custom cups as a durable product pillar, not just a one-season spike.

How should a new on-demand brand decide where to start?

In practice, your starting point should align with your operational tolerance and your audience’s expectations. If you have limited capital and want to lean heavily on print-on-demand and dropshipping, custom cups and other personalized accessories offer simpler production, fewer sizing concerns, and faster iteration. If you have deep expertise and infrastructure for jewelry, plus access to high-quality materials and craftsmanship, jewelry can still deliver higher margins and differentiation. Many founders start with cups and lighter personalized products to prove demand and refine their brand story, then selectively add jewelry once they have the audience and operational maturity to support it.

Holiday gifting is no longer a binary choice between something expensive and something generic. The data, and the day-to-day behavior you can see in customer orders and social feeds, all point to the same reality: consumers want gifts that feel like they were made for them, that they will actually use, and that reflect both personal and shared values. Traditional jewelry will always matter for certain stories. But for many on-demand printing and dropshipping entrepreneurs, the biggest untapped growth lies in the simple, customized objects that people reach for every single day—starting with the holiday cup on their desk.

References

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