The Great Gift-Guide Grift
Are gift guides a scam? Will She Spends succumb to the allure of sharing recommendations? Read on to find out.
I’m starting to panic about gift-giving.
On Wednesday, UPS said it would limit pickups from certain big retailers in a bid to manage the tsunami of orders coming in ahead of the holidays, Bloomberg reported.
Many online retailers have started adding disclaimers to their websites, reminding customers to order before a certain date to ensure delivery before Christmas. Even though I’m not going home for the holidays, I haven’t decided on what I’m buying for some friends and family.
In other words, I need to get on gift buying, stat. Cue the freakout. Enter the gift guide.
I know that not all of you celebrate Christmas, and I promise this story isn’t just about the holiday. Instead, it’s about the influx of gift guides published around November and December, who benefits from them, and some ideas on how we can give better gifts this year.
A gift guide is a curated list of products, usually published with a photo, review, and link to buy. The benefits for a publisher are two-fold. Sharing a guide establishes a blogger, news site, or influencer as a tastemaker of sorts. There’s also a lot of money to be made on them.
Let’s get the caveat out of the way ahead of time: some product recommendations are not financially motivated. A publisher could genuinely love the product and have had success in gifting it to someone in their lives.
But they also have other incentives when choosing what to feature. For one thing, influencers, bloggers, and even news sites get a lot of free products from public relations companies looking to get the brand they represent featured online.
There’s no obligation to highlight these free products, but one could argue that getting them gratis could affect a reviewer’s point of view on the product. After all, it’s much easier to recommend a $70 cleanser when you don’t have to pay for it.
There’s also the whole affiliate link thing. Today, major media companies like The Strategist and Business Insider have whole teams dedicated to writing reviews and product guides. Influencers and bloggers do the same, sometimes even creating a gift guide centered around a sponsored product.
They typically include a disclaimer at the bottom of the article or in the post which discloses that they could receive a small commission if you click the link. It’s a great way for newsrooms to make money during a time that the industry is hard up for cash. (More on that from Nieman Lab)
It’s worth considering whether this affects what is included in a product guide. Aren’t curators incentivized to include the links that make them money? If Amazon, Target and Nordstrom offer cash for clicks but a small biz doesn’t, who gets featured?
Beyond the money stuff, I wonder how many of the products recommended actually end up being good gifts. I mean, the Strategist says that a great gift for my dad is a pair of heavy duty toenail clippers. I can’t think of something he’d be more disappointed to receive.
The thing about all of this is that gift guide writers don’t know you, and they don’t know who you’re buying a gift for. They may surface a product that you haven’t seen before, but scrolling these guides endless likely isn’t the best place to begin your gift hunt.
In lieu of She Spends product recommendations, here are a few thoughts on smarter gift giving.
A few questions to ask yourself before choosing a gift:
What do you like about your gift receiver, and what do they like about you?
How can you highlight those things through a gift?
What is something they would never buy themselves, but would love to receive?
What are things you do together? Can you gift them something based on that?
Social media is a goldmine for gift giving. Check out your recipient’s Pinterest and who they’re following on Instagram for some inspiration. You could buy supplies for a craft they want to try, or a shirt they’ve been eyeing, or jewelry from a small brand they follow.
Even though we’re stuck at home, experience-based gift-giving is not dead. Meal kits, magazine subscriptions, monthly coffee bean deliveries, craft kits, and board games are all “experiences” when you think about it.
In general a gift someone can consume — wine, cannabis, lotion, snacks, fancy salt, a bath bomb — is a good one. Down with tchotchkes! (except this one)
One final thing: a word on small business shopping. You should absolutely do it, but make sure you know what to expect with processing and shipping. A small business doesn't have the same logistics available to it that Amazon does, so two-day shipping isn’t always a possibility. Read their policy and respect it!
