Social media the new hack to keep up with gifting

A GIFT in the hand was worth two in the post until online tech came along‚ increasing both online and offline gifting.

Gift-giving online is spreading in social networks partly because it is fast and easy and there are reminders about special occasions‚ a new US study shows. René Kizilcec‚ assistant professor of information science at Cornell University‚ said: “Social networking sites create greater awareness for giftworthy occasions like birthdays‚ and gifts can be given last-minute and over long distances.”

Acts of generosity online were inspiring people to give more‚ he said‚ and about half of these gifts were “unlikely to have occurred offline or via another online channel”.

Millennials were easily influenced to give online gifts but non-millennials‚ 45 to 64 years old‚ gave more presents overall.

Recent research found that sentimental gifts were more likely to delight people than superficial ones‚ but unsentimental spending seems to be taking off.

Online stores in South Africa‚ such as Takealot‚ had booming sales at Christmas in gaming products‚ music and DVDs. Another survey found that clothing‚ toys‚ hobbies and electronics were hot gifts.

Kizilcec’s team analysed online gift-giving behaviour in 2013 among American adults on Facebook‚ and did additional surveys to interpret this data.

In 2014 Facebook prompted users about birthdays and offered to send an online gift such as a $15 Starbucks (coffee) card.