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You may have other issues to figure out this holiday season, but we all have one issue in common, gifts.
Tis’ the season of giving, but it often isn’t as simple as that.
It’s down to the wire. Christmas is right around the corner and you can’t figure out the perfect gift. Do you have to? There is a default option that has been around for a while, gift cards (or gift certificates). But isn’t it the cop-out gift? The gift you give someone if you don’t really know what to get them? Well, yes and no. You have to approach it right.
Frankly, the option is hip now. You can’t grant someone the individuality that our society rewards easily without a gift card. I often find myself more drawn to the design on a gift card than any gift I walk out of a store with. Plus, places like Starbucks are now allowing you to customize the look of the gift card itself. So has the plastic become personal? It always had the option to be but now people are capitalizing on it.
The one rule of giving the gift of store-specific cash is simple, keep it specific stupid. Turn the gift of supporting individualism into something special:
1) Think of where the money can be spent. Choosing which store can show that you understand their lifestyle and goals. A generic spend-it-anywhere-card sounds fun. But unless you actually don’t know the person, take time to show them that you do.
2) Focus the spending of the money towards what you would like them to spend it on. Print out a picture or remind them in a message of what this can go towards. Places like Amazon.com
3) Specialize the money giving through a nice message or a clever design/packaging. Starbucks wants to snag four bucks for this action but you can dig up your own creative bug. A new wallet with some cheap gift cards in it or a coupon to make a trip of it with them can be some cute ways of turning the impersonal into something thoughtful.
4) Care about what they spend it on. Follow up, take time to appreciate their decision in a item that you helped them get. This also is important for another reason, msnbc reports “10 percent of the value of all of the gift cards given this year will not be used, leaving about $8 billion unspent this year, while about half the adults surveyed about their holiday shopping patterns by Consumer Reports said they received gift cards last year, but 19 percent — about 23.3 million Americans — said they had not yet used them.”
Time is running out, so lace up your boots and strut your stuff at the mall. No time for the catwalk? Amazon.com
It’s too late for most online purchases and shipped packages to arrive on time. So think of that last person on your list and go get them/send them
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