Half of Australians were no longer (27%) or unsure (23%) of whether they would be able to spend time with family this Christmas due to financial constraints, according to recent research commissioned by gift flick.
If they can’t be together 18% won’t be gifting, less than one-third (31%) have said it will depend on how close the person is and, just over half (51%) have said they will still give.
“While sending e-gift cards or vouchers is one of Australia’s favourite ways to gift (62%) (Pure Profile, Christmas 2022 Report), our research showed there were some notable apprehensions with this method,” gift flick co-founder and chief marketing officer, Helen Marsh said.
“For those who do use e-gift cards or vouchers, more than half (53%) worry that it comes across a bit lazy just sending a nominal value gift card, while almost 38% were worried their gift might seem impersonal, and a further 33% weren’t comfortable putting a nominal value on their gift.
“For those that don’t gift e-gift cards or vouchers, the strongest reasons for not doing so were that they liked to give something physical (51%); felt vouchers were impersonal (33%); don’t like to put a value on gifts (25%) or don’t want to be perceived as lazy (22%).
“The message is clear – people have warmed to online gifting, but they worry about the lack of personalisation, connection and/or showing an appropriate amount of effort. gift flick exists to provide an innovative way to digitally gift with personalised ‘gift stories’ that include video and/or written notes and digitally ‘reveals’ physical gifts or vouchers that will be sent directly from the retailer.
“The gifter is provided a unique URL, which they can send directly using any digital means – text, social media messaging or email – at the time of their choice. Even if the gift is going to be late, the sentiment never will and the retailer is still embedded in the experience and as the ‘gift story’ is created to embrace their latest creative marketing execution.”
For those that miss the shipping deadline, 35% have said they’ll send something digitally, 22% said they’d send the physical gift knowing it’d be late, 28% would consider whether they could be bothered sending a gift depending on how close they were to the person and 15% wouldn’t bother sending a gift at all.
“There’s a big share of the market who would welcome an innovative way to show their relatives they care in a more personal, thoughtful way, despite not being present themselves, having a tighter budget or not being able to physically get gifts to loved ones on time. We can solve all those problems,” Marsh added.
“The vast majority of people don’t’ love the ‘crazy of Christmas’ and with tighter budgets this year, a collective sense of exhaustion – but the ongoing human desire to maintain personal connection – we think gift flick could be the saviour for many gifts this Christmas.”