Gift giving in online and offline Retailing: investigating online behaviour

Gift giving research has been widely recognised as an important part of consumer research as evidenced by the number of papers published in research journals in the last 5 years and the number of consumer behaviour books incorporating gift giving as part of their contents. It is difficult to find an accurate definition of gift giving because the meaning of a gift and people’s gift giving behaviour changes from context to context (Davies et al., 2010). Most research has focused on gift giving in physical retail, thus neglecting the
importance of the digital context. The internet provides a new environment to analyse gift giving, especially considering the possibility of creating gift lists that givers can view, sharing gift preferences and online shopping (Hollenbeck et al, 2006). More than 10% of transactions of UK department stores in 2010 took place online (£1.2 bn.), representing a growth from the previous year of more than 3% (Mintel, 2013).

Although people still buy the majority of Christmas gifts in stores (Mintel, 2013), 42% of gift givers in the UK surf the internet for ideas before buying gifts, 47% compare prices online, 43% buy a few gifts online and 13% acquire most of the gifts through the internet (Mintel, 2010). Some internet-based companies, such as Amazon, include innovations such as gift vouchers and wish-list pages to select gifts for family and friends (Keynote, 2009; Gino and Flynn, 2011). These figures suggest that the online environment has the potential to offer new alternative gift selection strategies that facilitate givers’ gift choice and recipients’ satisfaction with the gift. However, the literature has paid little attention to this matter.

A greater research emphasis is needed regarding givers’ gift giving behaviour online to broaden the understanding of gift giving.