Rebecca Walker Razek Professor of Marketing at Ohio State University, corey haltman A Ph.D. candidate in marketing Ohio State University And grant donnelly Assistant Professor of Marketing at Ohio State University,
If finding the perfect gift and making sure the recipient receives it on time leaves you feeling ConcernedYou are not alone. More than half of Americans say gift giving makes them stressed,
Concerns about on-time delivery are so common that people share holiday deadlines for each shipping service. And if you can't meet these deadlines, there are now handy etiquette guides that offer advice on how to notify the recipient.
If you've sent a gift late due to shipping delays, low stock or even good old-fashioned procrastination, our new research may provide some welcome news.
In a series of studies that will soon be published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, we found that people overestimate the negative consequences of sending gifts late.
Trying to follow the rules
Why do people give more importance to these results? Our findings show that when people give gifts, they pay more attention For gift giving norms than recipients.
For example, other researchers have found that people are reluctant to give products used as gifts Because there is a rule that the gift should be new. However, in reality, many people are often willing to get used goods.
We found that this mismatch also applies to beliefs about the importance of time. Many people worry that a late gift will signal that they don't care about the recipient. Then they fear that their relationship will be affected.
However, in reality, these fears are largely unfounded. Gift recipients are much less concerned with when the gift will arrive.
Unfortunately, in addition to causing unnecessary anxiety, being overly sensitive about late gift giving can also affect the gift you purchase.
Alejandra Villa Lorca/Newsday RM via Getty Images
compensation for latency
To examine how latency concerns influence gift choice, we conducted an online study ahead of Mother's Day in 2021. We had 201 adults participate in a raffle. They can choose to send their mom either an inexpensive gift basket that will arrive on time for the occasion or a more expensive basket that will arrive late.
Nearly 70% of participants chose the less expensive and more prompt option due to concerns about latency.
In another study, we conducted a similar lottery for Father's Day and obtained similar results.
In addition to finding that people will choose inferior items to ensure faster delivery, we also found that givers may feel they can compensate for delays with effort.
In another online study of 805 adults, we found that if participants indicated their care for the recipient in a different way, they were less likely to expect that a late delivery would damage the relationship. For example, he believed that putting an item together by hand, rather than purchasing it pre-assembled, could compensate for a late gift.
better late than never?
If sending something late isn't as bad as expected, you may wonder if it's okay to not send anything at all.
We would caution against going that route.
In another online study of 903 participants, we found that recipients believed that receiving nothing at all was more likely to damage the relationship than receiving something two months late.
That means, as far as the gift recipients are concerned, better late than never.
You'll probably want to keep this in mind even if that new gaming console, action figure or virtual reality headset is sold out this holiday season. If it arrives in January or February it may still be a welcome surprise.
This article is republished from Conversation Under Creative Commons license.