If finding the right present and making sure the recipient gets it on time leaves you feeling anxious, you’re not alone. More than half of Americans say that gift-giving stresses them out.
Concerns about on-time delivery are so common that people share holiday deadlines for each shipping service. And in the event that you can’t meet these deadlines, there are now handy etiquette guides offering advice for how to inform the recipient.
If you’ve sent late gifts thanks to shipping delays, depleted stocks or even good old-fashioned procrastination, our new research may offer some welcome news.
In a series of studies that will soon be published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, we found that people overestimate the negative consequences of sending a late gift.
Trying to follow norms
Why do people tend to overestimate these consequences? Our findings indicate that when people give presents, they pay more attention to norms about gifting than the recipients do.
For example, other researchers have found that people tend to be reluctant to give used products as presents because there’s a norm that gifts should be new. In reality, though, many people are often open to receiving used stuff.
We found that this mismatch also applies to beliefs about the importance of timing. Many people worry that a late gift will signal that they don’t care about the recipient. They then fear their relationship will suffer.
In reality, though, these fears are largely unfounded. Gift recipients are much less worried about when the gift arrives.
Unfortunately, aside from causing unnecessary worry, being overly sensitive about giving a late present can also influence the gift you choose to buy.
Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images
Compensating for lateness
To test how lateness concerns affect gift choice, we conducted an online study before Mother’s Day in 2021. We had 201 adults participate in a raffle. They could choose to send their mother either a cheaper gift basket that would arrive in time for the occasion or a more expensive one that would arrive late.
Concerns about lateness led nearly 70% of the participants to choose the less expensive and more prompt option.
In another study, we conducted the same kind of raffle for Father’s Day and got similar results.
Aside from finding that people will choose inferior items to ensure speedier delivery, we also found that givers may feel that they can compensate for lateness with effort.
In another online study of 805 adults, we discovered that participants were less likely to expect a late delivery to damage a relationship if they signaled their care for the recipient in a different way. For example, they believed that putting an item together by hand, versus purchasing it preassembled, could compensate for a present being belated.
Better late than never?
If sending something late isn’t as bad as expected, you may wonder whether it’s OK to simply not send anything at all.
We’d caution against going that route.
In another online study of 903 participants, we found that recipients believed that not receiving anything at all was more likely to harm a relationship than receiving something as much as two months late.
That is, late is better than never as far as those receiving gifts are concerned.
You may want to keep that in mind, even if that new gaming console, action figure or virtual reality headset is sold out this holiday season. It could still be a welcome surprise if it arrives in January or February.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
