One in Four Indian Homes Receive Gifts They Have No Use For: OLX-IMRB Survey

NEW DELHI, December 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The Trend of Thoughtless Gifting and Re-gifting is on the Rise in India  

If you find yourself with an assortment of gifts that are of no use to you at the end of this wedding and festive season, then you're not alone. A survey done by OLX and IMRB reveals that the trend of receiving gifts one has no use for is on the rise. The average incidence rate of receiving an unwanted gift is at 26% in 2016 - up from 16% in 2014 as per the same study. This means that approximately one in four people received a gift item last year that they didn't end up liking and using.

The survey defines unwanted gifts as the ones that the user has failed to use in the last one year. The predominant attitude towards these gifts according to the survey is that of stocking them with almost half the receivers of unwanted gifts resorting to this behaviour.

Indians are also increasingly re-gifting the gifts rejected by them, which OLX likes to call Omnipresent because of their ubiquitous presence. As many as 24% of the surveyed households said that they re-gift their unwanted gifts (up from 20% last year). In addition to this, 14% admitted to throwing their unwanted gift items away, 7% said they sell them, and 5% claimed that they give it away as a part of charity.

Said Amarjit Singh Batra, CEO, OLX India, "Gifting is such an integral part of socialization in India that it led us to find out about the gifts that are of no use to the recipient. We discovered that a majority of such gifts are either lying unused at home or are re-gifted. Thoughtless gifting and re-gifting have increased in the last one year leading to a large number of surplus gifts in Indian households."

Interestingly, the survey also reveals that in the last one year, selling of these unwanted gifts has more than doubled. "The emerging trend of selling unwanted gifts is corroborated by the ads that we have seen on OLX. Unwanted gift items are being sold on OLX by people who want to buy something more personalized either for themselves or for others. There is a growing minority that is rejecting the idea of mindless gifting and re-gifting. At OLX we are making this behavioural change possible by connecting the seller of an unwanted gift to a buyer who may actually have a need for it," added Batra.

While re-gifting is on the rise, there are image-conscious people who are reluctant to pass on an unwanted gift. According to the report, 31% of the respondents cited reasons such as 'I'll be judged' and 'Lack of knowledge about the value of gift' as primary reasons for not re-gifting.

On the other hand, reselling has doubled in the last one year from 3% to 7% households confirming the rising trend of people selling their unwanted gifts to get money for more personalized gifts.

The Most Unwanted Gifts  

Clothing, food items, and kitchen appliances topped the list for the most gifted items that were unwanted.

Most Stocked Unwanted Gifts  

Among the unwanted gifts, bed linen, electronics, and personal items were the most stocked.

Number of Unwanted Gifts Per Household 

The report concludes that on an average every Indian household stocks approximately 4 food items, 3 gift vouchers, 3 clothing items, 2 kitchen appliances, and 2 toys as unwanted gifts.

Cities with the Highest Incidence of Receiving Unwanted Gifts  

With 71% households claiming to have received at least one unwanted gift in the last year, Hyderabad topped the charts when it came to receiving unwanted gifts. Chandigarh stood second with 50% and Mumbai with 38% of households claiming to have received unwanted gifts.

Cities with the Lowest Incidence of Receiving Unwanted Gifts  

On the other hand, only 2% of the households in Chennai claimed to have received unwanted gifts followed by 6% in Bhubaneswar and 7% in Pune.

The Most Re-Gifted Items  

The top most items that are re-gifted by Indian households are clothes, which have risen from 5% in 2014-15 to 33% in 2015-16. Clothes are followed by gift vouchers in which 1 in 3 are re-gifted. Overall, the most re-gifted categories are electronics and showpieces, which households have received at least 2 of each in the last year.

OLX-IMRB CRUST Methodology  

CRUST included a qualitative research followed by a quantitative study across 16 cities in the country covering 3 town classes - Metros, Tier 1 and Tier 2. The towns covered included, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Patna, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Indore, Kochi, Bhubaneswar and Pune. The product coverage in the sample study included kitchen appliances, clothing, books, mobile phones/smart phones, home appliances, watches, baby and children products, bicycles/two-wheelers, furniture, musical instruments, camera, sporting goods, computers/laptops, and cars/car accessories.

A random sampling methodology was used to identify the 5,800 samples across these 16 cities, using the electoral rolls as a sample selection frame. From the electoral rolls, appropriate number of addresses, representing the starting points were identified, ensuring randomness within a sample town, as well as geographic dispersion. The sample was spread across both males/females in the age group of 18-60 years, belonging to SEC A/B/C households.

Pen-and-paper interviews were conducted among the selected respondents. IMRB International conducted the study across 16 cities across the four regions of the country. The research surveyed about 5,314 consumers, chosen randomly across the age group of 19-60 years.

About OLX  

OLX (http://www.olx.com) is India's number one consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplace. It is India's largest marketplace for used cars and motorbikes, used mobile phones, used household items, and jobs and real estates. OLX offers a free, fast, and hyper-local way for Indians to sell and buy used goods and services. As pioneers of 'We-Commerce' in India, OLX brings sellers and buyers together for win-win exchanges.

OLX was founded in 2006, and is backed by Naspers, which is a global Internet and entertainment group and amongst the largest technology investors in the world. OLX is present in 40+ countries across the globe, and is the market leader in most of these countries. In India it already has 80% market share of the C2C online trade. OLX is the number #1 buying + selling mobile app in India according to Google Play store, and is currently trending at 3.4 billion page-views a month (August 2016). OLX India has won prestigious industry awards and accolades and was recently recognized by the prestigious 'Superbrands' in 2016.

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