The New Year's Gift of Alcohol Not Well Received in Bangkok

According to a recent published survey alcohol is the least wanted New Year's gift among residents of Bangkok. However, the report also states that it's the one they are most likely to receive.

The Bangkok Poll of 1,164 adults that live in Bangkok found a wide discrepancy in the types of New year's presents that people said they wanted to receive, compared to the New Year's gifts they were planning to be giving to others.

Bankok is well known for its tradition of New Year's gift giving. Alcohol made it high on the list of gifts those surveyed were planning to give to a recipient. Other popular gifts include cakes and cookies, household decorations and fruits. 46.3 percent of those surveyed said that alcohol is the present they would least like to receive.

Gift Wrapping Paper Gets Personal with PicturePaper

PICTUREPAPER PRESS RELEASE
PicturePaper.com can offer a unique gift before the recipient even opens the present. Users can take wrapping birthday gifts, or presents for any occasion to a new level, with the launch of PicturePaper™, which allows anyone to create unique picture gift wrapping paper with a few clicks of the mouse.

PicturePaper.com allows users to choose from an assortment of wrapping papers for any number of occasions and incorporate a personal image into the gift wrap. The personalized paper roll is then delivered in just a few days. PicturePaper.com is a fully-enabled website that allows users to upload original artwork, a personal photo or business graphic, then choose a design; customize the image to the chosen wrapping paper and then send it to a specialty printer that creates a six- to 35-foot-long roll of high-quality gift wrapping paper.

PicturePaper’s™ personalized wrapping paper system works via a website that is entirely interactive and driven by an advanced, specially-designed application that provides individual sessions of interactivity for each visiting customer. Customers can upload a picture and place it in their chosen wrapping paper style. Next they select the best view and see a representative sample. The entire uploading, fine-tuning and ordering process takes only a few minutes.

The unique gift wrapping paper is individually printed on a high-end, six-color printer that produces wrapping paper of near-photographic quality. The order is then inspected by hand before it is rolled and prepared for shipping.

PicturePaper.com utilizes professional designs under license from Shamrock Corporation, one of the leading retail suppliers of gift wrap. Shamrock Corporation is the owner of Innisbrook Wraps and Shamrock Gift Wrap. And the company is known for its quality wrapping paper and innovative designs that are created by creative and talented graphic design artists.

Most orders are printed within two days and delivered by shippers between one and three days later. Customers can also track the printing and shipping of their gift wrap order through the website.

Christmas Gift Returns to be Monitored for Return Fraud

In efforts to curb gift return fraud, many retail stores have implemented more restrictive return policies. Cross-referencing databases that track “serial returners” before accepting merchandise for a refund is becoming more and more common.

Retailers, reportedly including KB Toys, Express, Sports Authority and Staples, have started using a computer database by The Return Exchange of Irvine, Calif., in order to track customer returns. The process works by stores swiping shopper driver’s licenses when a return is being made, and if the store-set return limit is exceeded, the customer’s return claim is denied. Most stores are not currently posting the new policy for customers to easily access the information.

"To be a good consumer nowadays you have to understand what the rules are and be willing to play by the rules," Marquette University business professor Dennis Garrett said. Adding that, "those rules allow stores to protect themselves against return fraud."

The National Retail Federation estimated return fraud to cost retailers about $16 billion per year.

Garrett said, "while some consumers may not like the idea of having their returns tracked, in the long run it could actually save them money. We should be encouraging this and saying, 'Sure, track my purchases. I don't mind. I'm doing a good job as a consumer. Keep track of those people who aren't doing a good job and get them out of the system.'"

Most Sought After Christmas Gift, iPod Unavailable in Many Markets

Declared by many gift experts as this year's "must-have" Christmas gift, the Apple iPod has become unavailable to most consumers in several major markets. The popularity of the iPod has proven greater than inventories, and many retailers are reported to be completely sold out and have been for some time many retailers added.

"From New York to San Francisco, there are reports of shoppers entering Apple and other retail stores seeking the iPod and coming away with nothing but sour grapes when they learn they're sold out," reported Baltimore Sun reporter Joe Burriss.

Online holiday gift shoppers are also reported to have had difficulty. Major electronics web retailers such as Target and J&R Electronics and Amazon list the iPods as out of stock.

Gift industry analysts are forecasting the December quarter to be the best iPod quarter to date.

Holiday Gift Package Delivery Surges; UPS Reports Busiest Day of the Year

United Parcel Service reports Tuesday December 21 as their busiest day of the year. Faced with delivering an estimated 20 million, mostly Christmas gift packages throughout the country for Chrismas, UPS added that workers will be working overtime including more heavy lifting than originally forecasted.

Figures released by UPS included 3,000 packages per minute being sorted through 122 miles of high-speed conveyor belts and 10 million packages were loaded on over 600 airplanes. Additional UPS efforts included seasonal hires unloading packages from trucks and sorting them into air cans and UPS over head scanning technology that helped the automated sorting of packages.

UPS will be delivering through Christmas eve this year.

Retailers to Drop Prices After Disappointing December Holiday Sales

Anable to wait any longer, many retailers are reported to have drastically reduced prices on Christmas gift items in an effort to offset disappointing holiday sales leading up to Christmas. With the holiday season making up as much as 40 percent of many retailers yearly sales, stores have been slashing prices in hopes of enticing shoppers to buy last minute.

KB Toys is currently offering as much as 75 percent off on hundreds of video games and toys. While Kohl's has gone 50 to 60% off all fine jewelry and 75 percent off Christmas ornaments. And Ann Taylor has even taken 40% off everything cashmere.

''I'm not sure what happened," stated Issie Shait, general manager of the CambridgeSide Galleria. ''The Friday after Thanksgiving was great. The economy is better than a year ago, the unemployment numbers are better. I was hoping for a better season than we're seeing so far."

As the holiday shopping season proves more lackluster than retailers had hoped, retail analysts are now lowering their forecasts for holiday sales. Gift industry analysts reported that total sales were down 7% to $6.7 billion on Saturday, compared with the same time period Saturday last year and only 52 percent of people surveyed shopped for Christmas gifts this weekend compared with 55 percent the previous week.

Record Holiday Gift Package Deliveries Reported by FedEx

On monday December 20, Fed Ex Shipping reported record setting Christmas gift deliveries totalling 7.7 million packages. A company spokesman stated that in 2003 the busiest shipment day amounted to 7.5 packages. Further Fed Ex expected to send an average of 3.8 packages each day on the week leading up to Christmas day.

This year Fed Ex will be delivering Christmas presents shipped by December 23.

Annual List of Christmas Gifts to Avoid Released by World Wide Fund for Nature

The World Wide Fund for Nature recently released their annual list of Christmas gifts consumers should avoid for gift giving over this year's holidays. The WWFN states that Christmas gifts to avoid include crocodile skin, coral jewellery and Beluga caviar if they want to enjoy a guilt-free holiday season.

The Swiss-based nature conservation group World Wide Fund for Nature included the three on a list of items it states promote "commercial exploitation that is endangering animal and plant species already threatened with extinction." Other Christmas gift ideas consumers are asked to avoid are purchasing tiger products or tigers for pets, sources stated.

"All international trade of tiger products, whether used in traditional Asian medicine, as souvenirs or for good luck charms, is illegal," the WWF added. "Ivory in any form should also be avoided, along with shahtoosh scarves from the hair of Tibetan antelopes, various cactus species and electrical appliances that consume large amounts of electricity while on standby."

Charity Christmas Gifts Proving to be Popular Last Minute Solution

Charity Christmas gifts are proving to be a last-minute solution with holiday shoppers searching for something meaningful to give their friends or family. The christmas presents however are not the normal holiday gifts you would expect. Consumers finding themselves stuck at the last-minute for ethical, yet alternative present have been considering such gifts as a pig, an apple tree, chickens, a flock sheep and even a new toilet.

The gifts - part of an initiative by the Christian charity World Vision - are tuning out to be a huge Christmas gift idea hits. The Christian charity says, "people love it because they really value the unique gifts they can buy for their friends and family, while changing the lives of some of the world's poorest children and families." They are also very convenient for the giver because they can also be purchased quickly and easily online, allowing the charity to take care of the rest.

Instead of simply giving more unwanted clutter to friends and family, the Christian aid agency is offering a list which consumers can give to developing communities - on behalf of others. From oxen to an HIV education system, a wheelchair to a bicycle. Buyers can choose a price range and select a gift with the details of the friend on whose behalf the buyer intends to send the present. The charity then sends a special card to the friend or family member, telling them what has been given on their behalf.

Christmas gift ideas are offered for every budget, from a water filter or a fruit tree, through to complete furnishings for a school. The alternative gift selection is part of World Vision's ethical initiatives to help some of the world's poorest communities make their way out of poverty. The holiday gifts arrive in the context of the charities long-term development programs. Community leaders and local committees helped by World Vision staff identify their needs and priorities, including the gifts featured this year. "This," the charity says, "means the gifts that are purchased are really needed- and will be treasured when they arrive."

World Vision is one of the world's leading relief, development and justice agencies. It is also one of the largest- presently helping more than 100 million people in nearly 100 countries in their struggle against poverty, hunger and injustice, irrespective of their religious beliefs.

NYC schools Announce Christmas Gift Spending Rules for the Upcoming Holiday Season

New York City schools recently announced new spending rules for Christmas gifts during the upcoming holiday season. According to NYC Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, whole imposed the gift giving rule earlier this year, parents who want to buy Christmas gifts for teachers have a new $5 per student spending limit.

The new rule is part of the conflict-of-interest section of the New York City Chancellor's Regulations, with the intention of aiding students who can not afford to make money contributions to class gifts, officials said. The regulations also state that individual gifts from students or parents to school employees should be "principally sentimental in nature and of insignificant financial value."

Reactions to the new Christmas gift spending rule have been mixed. Several teachers and parents have declared the rules are examples of the Department of Education's mismanagement and could potentially send messages to teachers that they are underappreciated.

"I don't quite see the rationale to denying teachers a gift," said Mr. Klein, whose has a son in first grade. "We're not trying to curry favor with the teacher."

Some teachers said a christmas or holiday gift was one of the few perks they could count on. One teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she wanted students to "give as much as they want to give."

"At lunch, when I was talking to other teachers, some of them were saying things about how nice it is when kids make them something," the teacher said. "I was like, 'Give me the big gift certificate.' "
She said she was worth more than a $5 gift, adding "there's been no raise. I'm broke all the time."

When asked how the New York City schools would go about enforcing the Christmas gifts spending limit, Mr. Klein said: "We should try to do this in a way that's sensible. I think we leave it to the judgment of parents."

Mr. Klein said that if everyone used common sense, the christmas holiday gift-giving tradition would "not become some sort of flow of cash or other gift ideas that could be misconstrued."

Perhaps Lindsay Hershenhorn, a teacher at P.S. 321, summed the situation up most succintly, "Teachers should be paid enough so that parents don't feel they need to give gifts to teachers and teachers don't feel they need to accept them."

Online Gift Cards Surveys Declared Successful by Hallmark Cards

After three years of conducting online surveys and gaining important information about its consumers and their needs, gift card publisher Hallmark Cards declared the approach a valuable tool. The program, called The Hallmark Idea Exchange, is a private members-only community available to certain consumers. It also serves as a research lab for Hallmark gift cards.

Tom Brailsford, Manager of Advancing Capabilities at Hallmark Cards, explained a very important reason for its success and why anyone in the gift business should consider such a research model. "You can do three traditional focus groups and hear from about 24 consumers and it'll cost you two or three weeks and $10,000. On the other hand, through Hallmark Idea Exchange we can hear regularly from 150 consumers in 36 hours on a particular issue. We have evidence from linguistic analyses that suggests that the content we get from the communities is far richer than what comes from a focus group. We're trying to get faster, better, and cheaper."

1-800-FLOWERS.COM Announces Last Minute Holiday Gift Solutions

1-800-FLOWERS.COM announced it will be offering its customers a variety of last-minute Christmas holiday gifts, including flowers, plants, gift baskets and other holiday presents. According to a company spokeman the gifts can be ordered as late as 10 p.m. Eastern time on the evening of December 23rd for delivery via overnight carrier on December 24. They will also be accepting floral orders on December 24th for delivery that same day through its network of nationwide select florists.

"Shoppers are always stressed as the holiday season winds down," said Jim McCann, CEO of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. "We can provide that last-minute help, though, because we have the systems in place to deliver those gifts for shoppers who wait until the last possible moment to place their holiday orders."

1-800-FLOWERS.COM also reported that through its E-mmediate Gift notification solution they will be offering gift options Christmas day. Customers can have an e-mail sent to the intended gift recipient. "The E-mmediate Gift e-mail can include a description and photo of the gift being sent, and a personal message can let the recipient know they are not forgotten this holiday season. The personalized e-mail message can also arrive with an image of a wrapped box, to keep the gift to come as a surprise. The recipient should receive the actual product shortly after Christmas, depending on when the order is placed," the company spokesman said.

Gift Registries from Major Retailers Prone to Malfuncions

Recent testing by Forrester Research has uncovered several issues at three major gift registry providers. According to Forrester, testers encountered issues such as malfunctioning hardware, usability issues, and poor point-of-use design at Crate and Barrel, Williams-Sonoma, and Linens 'n Things.

"In Crate and Barrel's case," reported a researcher from Forrester, "usability was not an issue. The buttons on the screen were attractive, clear, and identified by color. The kiosk overall rated 20 on Forrester's scale. Unfortunately, a tool must rate 72 to pass muster as adequate."

Williams-Sonoma's gift registry kiosk, on the other hand, only rated 2, mainly because of hardware problems. "The printer was jammed when the testers began to use the kiosk, so many functions on the screen were locked as well. Once the employee cleared the jam, testers were able to complete tasks, but were not able to print a registry list -- once again due to a printer jam.", the researcher added.

Forrester researchers continued with Linens 'n Things, stating that, "their gift registry kiosk encountered performance issues in the evaluation process even before testers touched the screen. Unrelated marketing signage cluttered the space. A terse "Please keep this area clean" sign made users feel as if they should not be touching the kiosk. The signage describing how to use the registry was nearly illegible, as were the fonts on the touch-screen itself. That kiosk rated a lowly -10 on Forrester's scale."

Suggestions and recommendations by the Forrester research team included placing a self-service station out of the way of merchandise displays and noisy areas to help gift registry users concentrate.

Wedding Engagement Gifts, Including Diamond Rings Larger & More Valuable in 2004

According to a Conde Nast survey wedding engagements are lengthening. The average wedding engagement is about 16 months. Up considerably from 11 months in 1990. As a result, wedding engagement gift professionals are reporting that engagement rings are becoming larger and more expensive. And pre-wedding gifts in general are of more value and worth, they added.

Matthew Rosenheim, owner and president of Tiny Jewel Box in Washington, D.C., confirmed that "people are buying larger, finer-quality stones. The store's average engagement ring sold for $7,500, up 20 percent from last year. Additionally, a lot of people want unique rings."

According to the Jewelers Board of Trade Red Book, engagement rings account for approximately 1.6 million sales each year, accounting for close to $3 billion of the $12 billion people spend each year on diamond jewelry gifts.