10 questions to ask yourself before buying Christmas gifts this year to guarantee outside-the-box thinking
by Caitlin McBrideLike everything else in modern society, Christmas shopping is complicated.
In days gone by, there were the obvious conundrums shoppers faced like the stress of buying the ‘perfect’ gift and keeping it under budget.
Now, there is the added pressure of technological influence, social media pressures and considerations of buying new when we’re encouraged to shop sustainably.
“Subconsciously, shopping has become more stressful. There’s a wider choice than ever before and there’s a challenge with the technology part - technology is much more expensive than presents used to be and the average price of presents has significantly increased,” explains Jez Rose, a behavioural expert, who has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands like Dell and Disney.
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He has just teamed up with TK Maxx to apply his expertise in spreading the word about the best ways to reconsider shopping in an oversaturated market.
“For me the key is technology and the advancement is clearly influencing the speed at which we respond to things,” he adds. “We are encouraged to respond to things and make actionable decisions quicker than we’ve ever done before. It slightly increases the stress and you carry around in your subconscious that you need to act quicker than ever.
“Shopping is not a leisurely activity normally, and then adding in the complexities of the Christmas environment: looping of Christmas music, warm lights, busy queues and it becomes a job. It’s easier to manage a birthday present, which is just once a year.”
Jez compiled a list of questions to consider before purchasing gifts this year, intended to ignite some inspiration of otherwise unused parts of our ‘shopping brain’.
For example, he suggests, among others:
- “Imagine you have 24 hours to do anything you want. Sky’s the limit. What would you do?
- “Name something people assume you like, but you secretly don’t?
- What’s the one thing you own that you still haven’t used, and why?”
The questions are designed to make you re-think your traditional approach to gift giving. “It’s to think outside the box, and broaden and challenge the way you think, so you’re not just operating on auto-pilot. “
“I consider gift giving like a triad: it’s about the item, but the who, how and why. There’s a dual experience in reciprocity of giving and receiving and it’s about remembering that experience when shopping.
“The structure of these questions is very particular and it’s borrowing from techniques used by psychologists and detectives, used to elicit information. Isn’t it the same for gifting? The question, ‘What do you want to Christmas’ tends to get the same answer of, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t mind’.
“If anything, they’re mind hacks and ways for you to be able to think we think a certain way or behave the way we do. Almost three quarters of Irish people agree they’re not confident gift givers. We don’t necessarily talk about it because there is a solution because you can buy anything, but hopefully this will prompt people to think differently.”
New research shows that 83% of Irish people do not consider themselves “confident gift givers” and 68% of people would describe themselves as “autopilot gifters”. Jez references his mother who buys 12 candles for her 12 closest friends every year.
More than 50% of Irish shoppers will investigate as best they can to track down the best gift possible for someone, while 35% admitted to re-gifting.
10 questions to ask before buying a Christmas gift this year
1. Imagine you have 24 hours to do anything you want. Sky’s the limit. What would you do?
2. Finish this sentence. I’m the world’s unknown expert in …
3. This Christmas, you decide to donate everything you own except three items. What do you keep?
4. What’s the one thing you could watch or read about forever and never get bored of?
5. Name something people assume you like, but you secretly don’t?
6. What’s the one thing you own that you still haven’t used, and why?
7. Not including me, who’s the best gift-giver you know? Why?
8. When was the last time someone did something thoughtful for you?
9. What’s the best gift you’ve ever given someone, other than me?
10. Share what you are looking forward to most next year?