Is This Time-Poor Generation Fuelling The USD$31 Billion Gifting Market?

Online gifting marketplaces are fufilling the demand for retail convenience amongst the time-poor generation, presenting new market opportunities in the corporate sector.

It is predicted that the global gifting market for personalised gifts will be worth USD$31.63 billion by 2021, an enticing market value that many businesses and retailers want to tap into. According to a research survey conducted by Technavio, the three factors driving this growth are: the rise in gifting culture, innovative gifting solutions and the expanding online retail distribution channels. These factors may be linked to the present time-poor generation whose needs are growing, yet they lack the luxury of time to satisfy them.

Millennials are not the only consumers who are time-poor. The demands of a modern lifestyle coupled with digital technology and the sea of information pouring through our digital screens means the average consumer is starved of time. Businesses who want to build their presence today have to offer retail convenience for consumers while addressing their needs.

One Platform, Global Choices

The rise in gifting culture sees an increasing demand for personalised gifts while the gifting market reaches a CAGR of 8.5 per cent by 2021. With their fast-paced lifestyles, time-poor consumers are turning to online gifting marketplaces for gift shopping whenever they can. These online marketplaces are rapidly growing in size and benefit from high customer retention rates, as increasingly time poor consumers come to rely on them for all their gifting needs.

For the local retailers as well, the cost of holding inventory poses a challenge for them to carry large product collections. Therefore, many brands seek to partner with online marketplaces that fit their brand values, allowing them to reach an international audience, test out new unique product ideas and designs, and reduce their cost to market.

Seamless Shopping Experience

The crucial success factor for these global online marketplaces is their user interface and experience. They have to ensure that they offer a hyper local experience by thinking globally and acting locally, tailoring products and content to local market needs, whilst simplifying the process of gift personalisation for consumers that are in a time crunch. Curated localised storefronts offer the added convenience to consumers by enabling product visibility only for gifts available to their country and region, whilst tailoring content and pricing to the local market needs. Those looking for last-minute gifts can opt to filter products based on their delivery lead times, ensuring that their gift arrives in time for the occasion.

Individuals can choose to deliver the gift straight to the recipient’s doorstep or their workplace, which is an extra convenience if the recipient is based in a different country.

New Market Opportunities in Corporate Sectors

The time-poor generation faces another problem aside the lack of time itself – work satisfaction. A study from the Office Team revealed that 66% of employees would likely leave a job if they felt unappreciated at work. Amongst millennial employees, this figure rises to 76 per cent.

The urgency to improve employee work satisfaction is high since it impacts work productivity and turnover rate for employee talents. One way to do this is for corporations to introduce employee recognition programs, which allows HR managers and direct supervisors to send thank you gifts to other employees. This enables higher-level executives to show their appreciation to an individual or team for a successful project, and celebrate individual moments in life that matter including birthdays and work anniversaries.

Such recognition programs are also being adopted by businesses in other industries such as hospitality, finance and banking to retain existing clients. In finance and banking industries, relationship managers play a crucial role to ensure service satisfaction and trust between the business and clients. A gifting program that allows them to handpick a carefully curated selection of gifts for their clients will promise better and long-term relationships with key clients. Hotels are also starting to use such gifting programs to reward and thank returning visitors, fostering close relationships that can span across age generations.

Corporate Gifting Portals as an Innovative Solution

Some of the challenges for businesses in building these online corporate gifting portals is the high cost of portal construction, finding the right products, ensuring on-time delivery and management of the platform. This problem can now be resolved through subscription-based employee gifting portals from the likes of GLO Cloud, a subsidiary of Gifts Less Ordinary.

The future of the gifting market has many potential avenues that have yet to be fully tapped into, but there is no doubt that online gifting marketplaces will continue to grow for the next decade.