September 7th, 2022, Bhavika Bansal
The global gifting (retail) market is projected to grow by USD 14.6 billion by the year 2025. But what types of gifts do global consumers generally buy, and what are the most popular non-seasonal gifting occasions?
Data from YouGov Global Profiles – an audience intelligence tool – reveals that more than half of global consumers (52%) usually buy clothes, shoes, and/or bags as gifts. At 48%, food and drink items are an almost equally popular choice.
While more than one in three consumers gift toys and games (33%) and health and beauty products (32%), a third of consumers buy books and jewellery (30%). Personalized gifts, including mugs, t-shirts, etc., are also popular among almost a third of consumers (29%).
A quarter of consumers (24%) generally choose vouchers and gift cards (book vouchers, iTunes, Google Play, etc.) instead of actual products.
Despite electronics like tablets and e-readers being in demand by more than one in four global consumers (26%), DVDs, CDs, and Blu-rays (9%) are one of the least popular choices, along with holidays (11%) and pets (5%).
Data from YouGov Global Profiles also reveals that weddings are the most popular occasions for gifting (outside of usual occasions like Christmas, Easter, birthdays, etc.) among more than half of global consumers (53%).
The birth of a baby is a popular gifting occasion for more than five out of ten European consumers (53%) - significantly more than among global consumers (41%)
While two-fifths of global consumers (38%) usually buy gifts for wedding anniversaries, it is not a popular gift occasion in the Americas (26%).
‘Thank you’ and appreciation gifts are much less prevalent in the APAC markets (27%) than among European consumers (40%).
Though two out of five consumers in the Americas (44%) and MENA (40%) purchase gifts for baby showers, it is not a very popular occasion in the European or APAC markets (19% and 16% respectively).
Notably, while 42% of European consumers generally buy gifts for christenings and confirmations – significantly more than the global average of 15% - they are one of the least popular occasions in the APAC (8%) and MENA (7%) regions.
Hen and stag parties (11%), the start of school (9%) and job anniversaries (8%) also remain some of the least popular gifting occasions among consumers globally.
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Methodology: YouGov Global Profiles is a globally consistent audience dataset with 1000+ questions across 43 markets. The data is based on continuously collected data from adults aged 16+ years in China and 18+ years in other markets. The sample sizes for YouGov Global Profiles will fluctuate over time, however the minimum sample size is always c.1000. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from India and UAE, which use urban representative samples, and China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam, which use online representative samples. Learn more about Global Profiles.