2.
Gift buying can be a chore and not everyone enjoys buying gifts for others. That being said, Uncommon Goods did a lot of work to come up with their own analysis on truths about giving gifts at Christmas.
Here’s a synopsis of what the results were:
1. Men procrastinate…college students are even worse than men in terms of planning ahead. The older men are – the earlier in the season they begin their shopping.
2. The above chart indicates what percentage of Christmas Shopping is done by date and age groups. It appears as though the 65+ age group has 60% of their shopping done by Dec. 4.
3. The above chart shows that out of the four email clients, Gmail, AOL, Yahoo and Hotmail, – that AOL users spent 12.2% more than those of other email users.
And then there’s the outcome of a study by Hunch.com. They found that “Gmail users are more attractive, better educated, and better dressers than AOL users, they are also apparently more likely to be cheapskates.”
4. Those who live on the West Coast are 21% more likely than average to buy American-made, whereas in the Midwest people are 24% less likely than average to do so.
5. Men – they have no imagination. They tend to run out of good ideas and opt to just buy gift certificates (that’s my daughter’s grandfather! It’s gift certificates and clothes for Grammy…every year!)
6. The older you get, the more you care about other people. Uncommongoods.com has a program called, “Better to Give” where $1 of every purchase is donated to charities. Customers can choose which charity they’d like to see their dollar go to; however, it’s the older age groups 55+, that take the time to indicated their choice of charity.
7. New Englanders are 2.8% more likely than average to buy eco-friendly products. The top five eco- friendly states were actually Alaska, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Colorado. The bottom five were actually Arizona, Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
8. People with longer last names tend to spend more on gifts. Those with 14 letters in their last name spend more on gifts than other people with shorter last names.
Lastly, Uncommon Goods’, Brian Hashemi, has come up with “how to get a great gift” when you piece the data together:
“Taking all the data together, we can form a picture of an ideal gift-giver: a woman with an AOL email address, 55 or older, who lives in California or New England and has a long, complicated last name. Does this sound like anyone you know? Then you’re in luck.”
To read the entire blog post complete with charts visit: The Uncommon Goods Blog.
