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The increasing number of people who search for and purchase gifts online underscores the need to better understand the process of searching for gifts online. This study explores online gift-searching with regard to the psychological characteristics of gift seekers and the benefits of searching. This study examines how gift-giving orientations (agape and reciprocity) influence the perceived benefits of searching (utilitarian and hedonic) in online gift-searching behaviour.

The conceptual framework was tested using a survey. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The results show that agape positively influences both utilitarian and hedonic benefits, which in turn increase online gift-searching. Reciprocity does not affect utilitarian benefits but decreases hedonic benefits and thus causes a reduction in online gift-searching. The perceived benefit of searching fully mediates the relationship between gift-giving orientations and online gift-searching. Utilitarian benefits are the primary benefits that are sought by consumers who search for gifts online.

Previous research regarding online information searching has focused on searching for items for self-use. This study extends that research by focusing on gift giving. By analysing the mediating effects of both the utilitarian and hedonic benefits of searching, this study provides new insights into whether and how gift-giving orientations affect online gift-searching. Additionally this study offers guidelines for effectively managing online retail environments.

To date, most research focused on understanding the meanings and mechanism of gift giving behavior and there is little literature on channel usage behavior for gift shopping. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between consumers' retail purchase experiences for their own use and their gift shopping for others in a multichannel retail context.

Using a self‐administered survey method, the paper obtained 171 usable responses from females in a large US Midwestern University. Data are analyzed employing descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and structural equation modeling.

The findings of this paper showed that for all five retail channels (i.e. internet, mail‐order catalog, TV shopping, local stores, and non‐local stores), there are significant and positive relationships between consumers' product purchase experiences for their own use and their gift purchase experiences. Managerial and theoretical implications are provided.

Limitations of the present study include sampling, which prevent the generalization of results to all gift shoppers, and gift product categories focus on in the present study.

As little is known about the consumer gift shopping behavior in a multichannel retail environment, the study provides valuable strategy for multichannel retailers.

The aim of this study is to profile types of gifters via a set of psychographic consumption traits (frugality, gratitude, market mavenism and novelty seeking) and identify differences among the groups regarding their gift-purchasing behavior.

Based on the data from 193 participants, the authors seek to identify and profile unique consumer segments (gifters) generated from the four psychographic consumption traits. Second, once the segments are established, the authors analyze how the segments differ across 16 unique gift-purchasing behaviors.

The data generated four distinct consumer segments: experiential gifters, considerate gifters, convenience gifters and astute gifters. Across the segments, there were differences in their gift consumption behavior (e.g. time/effort spent, desire for customization, gift presentation, derived joy, purchasing frequency, eco-friendliness, seeking assistance, regifting and more).

US-based sample was collected via an online panel in January; this may restrict the generalizability of the research, given that gift consumption customs may vary across different countries. Thus, future research should include participants from other geographic regions to increase the external validity of the research.

Retail managers can use this knowledge to devise marketing strategies focused on the gift-purchasing behaviors of each group.

Segmenting clusters based on differences in consumption traits provides insights to retailers looking to build a competitive advantage, particularly in a gift purchasing context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and explore the factors that drive users to gift through social network services (SNS).

A questionnaire method was applied to collect data from the sample of the WeChat users who have used mini-program. This paper employed the partial least squares method and used SmartPLS2.0 to analysis sample data, which examined the validity as well as reliability of the sample and further tested the hypotheses by the path coefficients.

The empirical results showed that pleasure, social relationship maintenance, convenience and comprehensiveness are significantly related to SNS gifting behavior, and conscientiousness moderates the relationship between intention and behavior in the context of SNS gifting. However, this study cannot find the effect of symbolic representation, impersonality and gift reciprocity motivations.

Theoretically, this study perfects the research of SNS gifting on the lack of exploring characteristics of comprehensiveness. Practically, this paper lends insights on how SNS providers attract users to adopt gifting.

SNS gifting lacks a complete and effective promotion strategy, resulting in a small number of users as well as low profit. Besides, prior studies have focused on tradition gifting and online gifting. Little research talks about gifting on SNS phenomena, and thus it is necessary to perfect the theory of SNS gifting.

This research examines the impact of intended recipient on brand choice when purchasing a gift. Keller’s conceptualisation of consumer‐based brand equity, incorporating symbolic, experiential, and functional benefits, is used as a branding framework in combination with Belk’s characteristics of gifts, for measuring consumer behaviour differences occurring in alternative gift‐giving situations. The influence of gender, household income, and age are also examined. Findings suggest consumers vary in their choice of brands for different recipient groups. They also suggest that there are gender‐based differences in consumer’s brand choice for gifts, along with some income and age related distinctions. Finally, the findings suggest that overall consumers tend to look for brands with greater perceived symbolic benefits when purchasing gifts. Implications for the gift industry are offered along with future research possibilities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the recipient side of gift exchange by establishing the combination/level of gift benefits preferred by the recipient. It investigates the association between these benefits and the nature of the relationship between the gift giver and recipient.

A total of 250 people were surveyed about a recent gift receipt experience. Levels of symbolic, experiential, and functional benefits sought from the gift were established. Canonical correlation was used to analyse the interrelationships of relational variables (relationship type, strength, and length) and the preferred gift benefits.

People prefer gifts with a greater symbolic meaning (see with lower levels of functional and experiential benefits) from people close to them. People who have not known each other for long, but have a strong emotional connection, prefer gifts that are primarily functional. It shows that benefit associations are significant to gift recipients, the type of relationship the recipient is in has a significant effect on the desired combined level of benefit associations, and the symbolism of meaning for gifts can be expressed through benefit associations.

Studies of gift exchange focus on the gift giver and the benefits gained from the act of giving. The results show that the exchange process used by sociologists and consumer behaviorists to describe and explain gift‐giving activity cannot assume the same levels of benefits associated with the gift occurring on each side of the exchange. It is also shown for the first time that the type of giver, and the relationship the recipient has with the giver, will modify recipient preferences.

Drawing upon the evolutionary psychology perspective, the current research aims to investigate the conditions under which power (high vs low) and emotion (pride vs gratitude) can influence consumers to purchase products for others via two fundamental motives (the signaling and affiliative motives).

Three experiments are conducted. Study 1 demonstrates that consumers with high (low) power are more likely to choose a wine promoted with pride (gratitude) appeals. Study 2 shows that consumers in the high- (low-) power condition report a higher willingness to pay for a wine promoted with pride (gratitude) appeals. Study 3 replicates the findings of Study 2 using a different product advertisement (chocolate bars).

This study provides concrete empirical evidence that powerful consumers experiencing pride will engage in gift giving because of an increased signaling motive. In contrast, powerless consumers experiencing gratitude will engage in gift giving because of an increased affiliative motive.

This study explores the context of gift giving using wine and chocolate bars as the products. It would thus be of interest to examine and extend the effects in motivating other prosocial behaviors such as donating and volunteering.

The findings suggest how different states of power can be temporarily and purposively triggered and matched with the desired emotional appeals within adverting messages to increase persuasion.

This study illustrates a novel mechanism for gift giving from the evolutionary psychology perspective by showing that gift giving can be motivated by two distinct pathways – affiliative and signaling motives. Further, it tests how the interactive effects of power (high vs low) and emotion (pride vs gratitude) can activate such motives.

This study aims to explore the dual identity role of joint gift-giving among adolescents. Studying this phenomenon through the lens of impression management theory enabled us to analyze private and group motives, drivers of these motives (givers’ public self-consciousness and self-monitoring and group cohesiveness) and the influence of group motives on the joint process. The characteristics of the joint process reflect a mutual social activity that enables adolescents to strengthen social group ties and define and nurture group identity. This research showed how a mutual consumer process, specifically, joint gift-giving, enhances the outcomes of social resources by defining groups’ mutual extended selves.

In this study, quantitative tools were used. Selection of constructs for the study was based on a literature review and existing qualitative research. To test the validity and the reliability of the scales, a convenience sample of 103 adolescents (13 to 16 years old) was used in a pre-test survey. In the main study, a convenience sample of 129 adolescences was used. Self-report questionnaires were distributed to adolescents (aged 13-16 years). The survey included scales covering private and group motives for joint gift-giving, givers’ personality, group cohesiveness and the characteristics of the joint process.

Givers’ public self-consciousness and self-monitoring were positively related to the motivation to engage in joint gift-giving to facilitate the development of desired private identities. High public self-consciousness and self-monitoring givers were motivated to enhance their private role in the group task and managed their impression among multiple audiences. We found that high-cohesiveness groups were motivated to nurture and strengthen social resources through joint gift-giving. Engaging in joint gift-giving is motivated not only by functional motives (e.g. saving money) but also by social motives that strengthen a group’s extended-self and social resources that all members enjoy.

Although gift-giving is a three-stage process per gestation presentation and reformulation stage, the current study explored joint gift-giving behavior only in the gestation stage. Future research should include the other two stages. Also the current research concentrated on adolescents. Exploring joint gift-giving among adults is recommended as well. Comparing the two age groups should allow a better understanding of the special characteristics of adolescents and adults. Additionally, other personality characteristics could affect givers private identity in the group task and other group characteristics such as group size gender of members and group context in the workplace could affect identity.

This research can provide marketers with a deeper understanding of the joint gift-giving process. For example, marketers should recognize that joint gift-giving involves adolescent groups’ time-consuming activities in the joint process, i.e. gift selection effort, making handmade gifts and putting special efforts in gift appearance that enable them to define and nurture their group identity.

Parents and educators should recognize the importance of social identity dual role in participating in joint gift-giving. Hence, we recommend them to encourage adolescents to participate in this joint consuming process to enable them to protect and define their identity.

Adolescents are an important market segment with unique cognitive, social and personality processes. While these processes have been explored in several consumer behavior studies, adolescents’ gift-giving has been largely ignored in the literature. This study contributes to an understanding of the drivers of private and group joint gift-giving motives, how sense of belonging and group identity are reflected in the social dynamics of joint gift-giving and how adolescents manage group and private impressions in the eyes of a single receiver and in the eyes of multiple peers participating in the group task.

Previous research on impression management explored motives, the use of impression management tactics and the influence of personality characteristics on the tendency to engage in impression management. The purposes of this research are to examine gift‐giving behavior among adolescents based on the building blocks of impression management theory, the ways that personality characteristics motivate gift‐givers to engage in active and defensive impression management and how the use of impression management tactics (i.e. similarity‐conformity and target‐enhancement) are reflected in their gift‐giving behavior.

A convenience sample of 141 adolescences was used in a quantitative study. Self‐report questionnaires were distributed to adolescents of different ages (13‐16), with students from diverse social strata. Students were asked to recall a recent peer gift‐giving experience and to refer to it when answering the questions which covered motives for gift‐giving, personality characteristics, and the characteristics of the gift.

The authors' study shows that personality characteristics such as public self‐consciousness, self‐monitoring, and self‐esteem are positively related with gift‐giving motives. Additionally, gift‐giving motives are positively related with the use of similarity‐conformity and target‐enhancement tactics. Finally, the use of impression management tactics reflects adolescents' special characteristics, such as their tendency towards conformism, important role of peers in their lives, and their high need to protect and nurture these social resources.

This research explored the instrumental role of gift‐giving among adolescents and contributes to the existing literatures on gift‐giving, impression management, and adolescents' consumer behavior.