Nearly eight in 10 Indians (77%) prefer Clothes, Sweets (including chocolates- 69 %) and Books (49%) as their preferred gifting items. Importantly, more than half of the people surveyed indicated they would shop online.

Following are the broad findings of a survey conducted by Nielsen India on gifting patterns research panel.

• Differences are there across different age groups in terms of gifting items, budgets and shopping channels.

• Sweets, Clothes and Books are universally popular, but more so with the mature group aged 45 and above

• The younger crowd (15-24 years) prefers to gift technology gadgets such as mobile phones and MP3 players.

• Holidays (travel and accommodation), travel tickets and tickets to amusement parks are popular new-age gift ideas.

• About 20 percent would like to give wine as a gift.

• More than half of the people surveyed indicated they would shop online.

According to N. S. Muthukumaran, Director, Online Panel, the Nielsen Company, India, the technology that has entered our lives in the last 10 years is deeply affecting young people in their twenties who have grown up with it. He says, “To many, it is cool to be seen with the latest model of phone or music system and giving one as a present is in the same league, albeit a costly option for these young folks.”

Look for more findings of the survey indicating the habits and beliefs of Indians regarding gifting in the next blog posts…

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Gifts with something inscribed, something engraved or a scrapbook can add a personal touch.

Gifts with something inscribed

Books can indeed be a thoughtful and very special gift, but inscriptions carry them to a whole new level of intimacy. Buy your buddy a new book of fiction (need not be romantic) that she or he has been always talking about and is craving to read. It can also be his or her favorite classic, a journal, or a coffee-table book, the subject matter does matter, but your inscription does make it special.

Something engraved

An obvious gift may not be on its own such an innovative idea, but there’s an easy method to take it even the simplest and commonest of gifts into an entirely ultimate romantic orbit by engraving! By branding a cell phone, bracelet or even a simple key chain with your feelings and emotions or simply with your initials, or a memorable day, you can send the message in a subtle way.

A personal scrapbook

Don’t think that we are suggesting you simply cut & paste some pictures into a scrapbook but this is definitely the wonderful way of preserving and rekindling romantic memories. It’s rather about as near to any home-made gift and isn’t it nice narrating the story of your romance or friendship with a personal scrapbook as gift.

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There are some quick points that one must note while corporate gifting items:

• Know what gift items can be an embarrassment to the receiver. For example, if you are gifting anti-smoking pills to a smoker, that would definitely be an embarrasment.
• Know whether the person at the receiving end is a gadget freak or not. If not, don’t embarrass your self and the receiver by gifting a gadget to a person who is going to maybe sell the gadget off to encash it for money or put it in the trash box. Moreover, there are many worthless gadgets all around the marketplace.
• Know what the other person would like to have rather than just knowing what they are passionate about. There’s a difference between the passion of the person and the person’s requirement at a given point of time.
• Know what the person won’t like to have et all. Thats very important.

Indeed, gifting is done to make the person happy and smile with delight, not to embarrass. So, just keep in mind

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After 20 years in the field of corporate gifting my own experiences have made me believe that a corporate gift is a representative of the company and if the gift looks good so does the company.
But all gifts look good right? No! they don’t here is a list of the worse gifts to be given.

If you don’t know what your boss or client likes (supposing he is a male) and you go to a store and see all products for male’s and finally pick up an expensive set of gold clubs. That should impress him right. But what if he hates the sport you spent a lot of money over nothing.

Suppose if the person you are gifting is a fitness freak and you decide to buy him / her a fitness video it does not make sense because you don’t know if they already hold of copy of that tape or not. If they do they will thank you but it will be a waste of your money and the gift will not be appreciated.

Never give something seen on a shopping network because it may look pretty but if the person receiving it does not like it it’s just a waste of money.

Never buy something that is cheap because it’s not something that will please your client.

When it comes to clothes it is never a good choice because apparels are something with is not standard i.e. every individual has a difference in choice and thus giving a gift certificate makes more sense.

Never buy something like lingerie as it could be taken in the wrong sense and you could go to prison for harassment.

The worse gift to give is a handmade gift it may have personal touch but it’s bad for the simple reason that you would be spending more on the material for the gift and will be using a lot of time and energy in making it.

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