The short version
delaware, a Belgian ICT and business consultancy with 5,000+ employees across 20 countries, ran an end-of-year gift for its people. One private webshop behind its own single sign-on, seven gift options, one coin per person, individual home delivery. The campaign opened on a single page with one call to action, and everything behind it ran on Sunday. It closed at 1,488 orders against 1,488 coins redeemed, with zero employee records ever exported.
Who delaware is
delaware is a global ICT and business consulting firm, founded in 2003 out of a management buy-out from Andersen and Deloitte, headquartered in Belgium. More than 5,000 people work across 20 countries and 38 offices, delivering SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce and OpenText transformations. Two details drive everything that follows: most of delaware's people are consultants working at client sites, not sitting where a pallet of boxes can be handed out; and delaware advises clients on information security and data governance for a living, which sets a high bar for what a third-party gifting platform is allowed to hold.
Why employee Christmas gifting breaks past 1,000 people
At 50 people, a Christmas gift is a nice afternoon. At 5,000, it is an operations project that nobody has staffed. The default approach looks cheap on the quote and expensive everywhere else: one gift is chosen for everyone, so roughly a third of the company receives something they will never use; someone guesses the size curve and produces leftover stock; HR builds a spreadsheet of names, sizes and home addresses, then chases the people who never replied; that spreadsheet gets emailed to a supplier, where it becomes a personnel database with no owner and no expiry date; and boxes arrive in bulk at a few offices for someone to redistribute by hand.
None of that appears on the invoice. All of it is real cost. The cheap version of employee gifting is usually the expensive one.
Our people are spread across client sites all year. A gift that lands in a box at the office is a gift half the company never actually sees.
Four decisions worth copying
The campaign launched behind a single landing page reading "2026, Make it yours." with one call to action: choose your end-of-year gift. That headline is not a seasonal slogan — it is delaware's employer brand line, the same one that runs across its careers communication, which is why the campaign sat with marketing rather than procurement.
1. Identity stayed with delaware, through SSO. Login runs through delaware's own single sign-on, so no staff list was ever exported, because there was nothing to export. A new joiner authenticates and the store recognises them; someone who leaves loses access at the same moment they lose access to everything else. Access control stops being a list HR maintains and becomes a property of employment status.
2. Budget became coins, not euros. Every employee received a wallet, and every product cost exactly one coin. There is no price tag, so nobody compares their gift to a colleague's, and there is no way to overspend. The campaign closed at 1,488 orders against 1,488 coins redeemed — order count and budget consumed are the same number, the cleanest reconciliation a gifting budget will ever get.
3. Choice replaced the size guess. The store carried seven ways to spend a coin: a fleece bodywarmer in male and female fits from XS to 5XL with a full size guide, a Kambukka mug, Loop Engage 2 earplugs, a sock box, a WONDR soap package, a sports bag, and a #WeCare donation for people who would rather the budget went elsewhere. Nothing was produced against a forecast; when the sports bag sold out it greyed out rather than overselling and creating a refund conversation in January.
4. Delivery went to the person, not the building. Each employee entered their own delivery address at checkout, so HR collected zero home addresses. Consultants at client sites received their gift at home on the same timeline as everyone else.
What launch day actually looks like
Announcing a gift to a company this size does not produce a steady trickle of orders — it produces a flash-sale load pattern. On 1 October, 574 orders landed within a few hours, roughly 39% of the entire campaign in a single afternoon, with stock counts staying accurate and nothing overselling. Any platform can handle 20 orders a day for two months; the question to ask a gifting partner is what happens in the four hours after your announcement email goes out.
We sent one announcement. By the end of that afternoon, 574 colleagues had already picked their gift. Normally that is exactly the moment someone opens a spreadsheet and the real work starts. This time nothing landed on our desk at all.
Results
- 1,488 orders, 1,488 coins redeemed. Spend reconciles to order count with no invoice archaeology.
- 574 orders in a few hours on launch day, around 39% of the campaign, with accurate stock throughout.
- Zero employee records exported. No staff CSV, no address collection by HR, no vendor-side list to keep current or delete.
- Zero manual account provisioning. New hires during the window gained access automatically through SSO.
- No size-guess inventory and no internal distribution effort — 1,488 individual home deliveries replaced bulk drops plus manual handout.
The same four decisions scale in both directions. See how Deel shipped 4,870 gifts to 110+ countries, or how PGS Group runs a standing coin shop across nine countries.
Frequently asked questions
How do you run a Christmas gift campaign for thousands of employees?
Give each employee a fixed budget in a private webshop and let them choose. delaware gave every person one coin, priced every product at one coin, and shipped to individual home addresses. That removed size guessing, budget overruns and internal distribution in one move, across 1,488 orders.
How do you keep employee data safe in a gifting webshop?
Use single sign-on instead of an employee list export. delaware's store authenticates against delaware's own identity provider, so no staff CSV was ever created or handed to a third party, and employees enter their own delivery address at checkout.
What happens when a new employee joins during the campaign?
With SSO, nothing extra. New joiners can log in and order as soon as they have company credentials, and leavers lose access at the same moment they lose access to every other company system.
How do you stop employees from overspending the gift budget?
Give a wallet instead of a price list. One coin per person, one coin per product, no visible prices. Maximum spend is headcount multiplied by coin value, known before the campaign opens.
How do you handle sizes without ordering the wrong stock?
Publish a size guide and let people choose. delaware's fleece bodywarmer ran in male and female fits from XS to 5XL with a measurement table, so allocation follows real orders instead of a forecast.
Can a gifting platform handle everyone ordering at once?
It has to. delaware saw 574 orders in a few hours after its announcement email on 1 October, around 39% of the total campaign, with stock levels staying accurate and nothing overselling.
How long does it take to set up an employee gift store?
Days, not months. Sunday builds the store, loads the catalogue, connects SSO and handles production, warehousing and delivery.
