Choosing And Purchasing Personalized Gifts In The Digital Age

Some people think that the traditional American shopping experience has become more impersonal in the online age. The latest survey data shows that almost 50 percent of Americans buy all or most of their gifts online. It’s true that there is less face-to-face interaction as shoppers have forsaken traditional shops for the internet, but when gift shopping, the gifts themselves can be more personalized than ever.  

In fact, the internet has combined with other evolving technologies, such as smartphones and social media, to transform the way we shop for personalized gifts and the type of personalization that is now open to us. Popular shopping platforms offer an ever-growing range of gift products that can be customized in a variety of ways. These include the following:  

• Adding personalized inscriptions, such as names, initials, or a short message
• Uploading images for unique gift cards, mugs, t-shirts, fridge magnets, and other keepsakes
• Choosing your own color schemes or fonts as part of the personalization

Best of all, you can use tools to visualize exactly what the gift will look like before you commit to purchasing it.  

Popular Types Of Personalized Gifts

A growing market attracts more sellers, and that adds to one thing: choice. Today’s American gift-givers can buy almost any type of gift online. Some of the best personalized gifts that always seem popular include durable leather products like wallets, belts, and keychains. Gifts like these are appreciated by men and women of all ages, so they are guaranteed winners. After all, everyone needs somewhere to keep their money, their credit cards, or their keys.

But the range of possibilities goes far beyond these kind of safe choices. In fact, it grows with every passing week. As well as these traditional gifts that have been popular for generations, there are personalized gifts that are ideal for those who have grown up in the tech age. Examples include lanyards for key cards and passes, long wallets with room to hold a smartphone as well as cash and cards, and laptop cases.  

Personalized gifts do not have to be tangible. Millennials have been shown to value pleasurable life experiences over the acquisition of belongings. This goes some way to explaining the growing popularity of experience gifts. Last year, a survey by Wakefield Research and commissioned by a well-known travel platform found that 92 percent of Americans surveyed would prefer an experience to a physical gift. That’s up from 77 percent the previous year.  

Future-Gazing In The Personalized Gifts Market

The tech age has changed the types of personalized gifts that are available and the way they are chosen beyond all recognition compared with 30 years ago. But what might the future hold, and will gifting change to a similar extent between now and the 2050s?  

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It is impossible to know for sure, but the likelihood is that there will be change, but not to such a dramatic extent. Remember, the 1990s was a period when tech was developing at breakneck speed and transforming our lives dramatically from one year to the next. Today, advances continue, but not at such an incredible rate of change.  

There are, however, two areas that are likely to have a profound impact on personal gifts and whose possibilities we are only beginning to explore. The first is AI. Tools already exist that can analyze an individual’s tastes and preferences to suggest gift ideas. These tools will undoubtedly become more sophisticated over the coming years, and their usage more widespread.  

The second aspect is 3D printing. This could open the floodgates to allow gifters to create custom gifts that are completely unique and limited only by the imagination. These gifts might include custom-designed jewelry, figurines, models or artwork inspired by everything from nature, technology, architecture or even fan fiction. Both of these areas of innovation will contribute to making gifting more personalized and imaginative than ever.