6th Business & Management Conference, Geneva

ANALYSIS OF RE-GIFTING MOTIVATIONS IN INDIAN SCENARIO

NOOPUR AGRAWAL

Abstract:

Re-gifting is a “form of gift giving where the gift is second-hand and that fact may or may not be concealed from the recipient” (Swilley et.al 2014) . This practice is very common in present society. For instance in the U.S., approximately 30% of people engage in re-gifting during the holiday season (American Express 2013).In this process, if we look from the dimension of socio-economic benefit, people who pass on their gifts to others may (indirectly) contribute to reducing a considerable waste of economic value. In 2013, for instance, the average American spent over $700 on Christmas gifts (Gallup 2013). However, estimates indicate that up to one third of gift spending is wasted because many gifts do not match the recipients' preferences and are thus unused or discarded (Waldfogel 1993). Re-gifting gives unwanted gifts a second chance of being used and, as such, could help people reduce waste and consume fewer material resources for new gifts. In India also this practice of passing on gift to others is very much in practice especially in the festive season but in a concealed manner. Present research makes an attempt to identify the motivations of Indian consumers behind re-gifting. Along with focus group discussion to identify the re-gifting motivations in Indian scenario (which forms part of qualitative investigation of re-gifting motivations) quantitative analysis has also been conducted with a sample size of 190 respondents selected through snowball sampling via online survey. The results indicate that most of the Indian consumers relate the process of re-gifting to morality and want it to be a secret despite the fact that they do it very frequently.

Keywords: Key Words: Re-Gifting, Morality, Society

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