Abstract
Social risk is an area that has been extensively explored with regards to gift giving in general, but only in a limited fashion with regards to gift cards (e.g., Tuten and Kiecker 2009). In this paper, we examine the situations in which a gift card is the giver’s first choice of a gift, and when it is a last resort. Specifically, we aim to answer questions how gift givers perceive themselves, and how they want others to perceive them (i.e., self- and meta-perception), are innately tied to when and why consumers choose to give gift cards. In this paper, we explore the risk-reduction strategies that consumers use when choosing gift cards in lieu of specific gift items - strategies related to consumers’ self-perceptions, meta-perceptions, social ties, and gender. We use a field study to explore both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons why people choose to give gift cards in lieu of actual gifts. The focus is about people’s experiences of giving gift cards, such as why they choose to give them, whom they purchase them for, and how they feel about the exchanges. We received 217 valid survey questionnaires with a response rate of 80.6%.
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© 2015 Academy of Marketing Science
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Huang, L., Austin, C.G. (2015). Social Safety or Saving Time? An Empirical Study in Giving Gift Cards. In: Dato-on, M. (eds) The Sustainable Global Marketplace. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10873-5_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10873-5_14
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Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
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Online ISBN: 978-3-319-10873-5
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