By Kerry, Head of Brand & CX at Whirli
Gift buying for kids can be fun and rewarding, but it can also quickly descend into a desperate and frantic search. One that involves googling “best gift for a 3 year old girl with next day delivery (sent straight to the recipient) and gift wrapping with little sparkly confetti bits included….please!” A search that will rarely be fulfilled and one that invariably leaves you sweaty palmed.
Our Top 5 Pitfalls When Gift Buying:
Earlier this year we interviewed 2000 parents across the UK. We asked them a bunch of questions but when it came to gift buying for children, other than their own, these 5 shared pitfalls stood out:
1) Panic Buying
A third of people confessed to buying a gift for someone else’s child at the last minute. Not only does this all-too-common problem leave you spending way more than you budgeted but it also is more likely to lead to pitfalls 2 – 5.
2) Not liked by the child
Just under half of the gifts received in the last 12 months were not even liked by the child. This is actually quite common when buying for your own child never mind someone else’s. Thinking you know what a child likes is as predictable as a game of roulette. Sometimes you luck out, but clearly half the time we’re all getting it wrong.
3) Not liked by the parents
If it wasn’t tricky enough, two-thirds of gifts received in the last 12 months were not liked by the parents! Seriously? Common reasons given were the toys were too gender stereotyped or did not fit with their ideals or ethics. There’s more to gift buying than we ever anticipated.
4) Age inappropriate gifts
50% of the gifts received were not even age appropriate. Surely this is a straight forward ask. But still problematic, clearly!
5) Duplicate gifts
Half of parents said their child had received a duplicate gift in the last 12 months. So that toy you just bought someone, which is not liked by the child, or parent, that was panic bought in the first place, and is age inappropriate is actually something they already have!
#giftfail
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