We started bouncing the idea off each other, and with our friends and family, and paid particular attention when we had to send and receive gifts. I had also carried out white paper research regarding the psychology of gifting.
Some discoveries we made was that online gift-shopping would be more useful for acquaintances or distant friends and family (henceforth termed as “distant recipients”), rather than close friends or family (termed as “close recipients”). On one hand, we would not mind sending and receiving online gifts (seen as impersonal and convenient to the sender) if the connection with the other party was weak. On the other hand, we would go the extra mile to pick out gifts, package / bundle them beautifully and hand-deliver it to our close friends or family because part of the joy comes from the look of delight on our recipient’s face which thoroughly warms the heart. It is a way of showing love and devotion that will be diluted if it becomes an online experience, not being able to celebrate together. This only holds true in Singapore’s context as there are cultural differences with other countries. For example, in the United States, it would be more acceptable to buy something online and then repackage it after receiving the package before gifting it away.
We also understood more about the problem we were tackling. If we were to receive something we did not like (especially as a distant recipient), we might want to refund it, or sell it on Carousell / eBay without the sender finding out. Even if the gift was something more to our liking, common problems included receiving the disliked colour or model, or incorrect size. The gift would also be a generally useful item rather than something that is thoughtful.
