Gifting in Corona Times

The sparkle in our eyes when we come across the news of greeting corona warriors with flowers or the policeman going with the birthday cakes for small kids in this harsh lockdown brings about a very important aspect of human nature – ‘Even in the ocean of perennial darkness, Humans are hard-wired to look out for the blinking reflection of the Sun.’

Corona Pandemic has not only killed thousands of people worldwide and has brought life at standstill across the world but has exposed the fickleness of our mighty development stories. Not a single business exists that has not felt the trauma of this pandemic, whether it is healthcare, e-commerce, banking, tourism, food and beverages, mining, shipping, agriculture, etc. However, as it is said ‘Adaptation is a natural principle and you can thrive only if you adapt’, some of the businesses are adapting to this new reality and ramping up their supply chain to suit the needs. Among these, the E-commerce sector has the highest adaptation flexibility since they are based on light asset model and specially cater to the needs which is still there.

Among the many spheres where the corona pandemic has caused disruption, private life is one of the worst disrupted. People can no longer celebrate their precious moments with the near & dear ones in traditional ways. Amid every minute call of social distancing, there will be no outings to celebrate birthdays/valentines, no surprise gifts shopping in the crowded areas. But as it is said, ‘Problems exists to contemplate solutions’, online gifting e-commerce players have to rise up to the challenge.

Gifting is giving shapes to the emotions, creating memories, spreading positivity, blooming happiness among our loved ones. Crisis has presented the online gifting players a big opportunity as well as enormous challenge to fill the vacuum created in the gifting space and permanently make room in the heart of customers as ‘harbingers of happiness’. They must need to ensure ‘the emotional entanglement remains intact amid the call for social solitude’.

Before being hit by the corona pandemic, online gifting space has been experiencing tremendous growth in recent years. As per study done by Qwikcliver, India’s online gifting market is set to touch $84 billion in 2024, whereas global gifting market is estimated to be $475 billion. The major contributor to this market is corporate gifting which enjoys the lion share of about 80% followed by the festive & personal gifting.

With the increasing demand of personalised gifts combined with the rapid internet penetration, online gifting space is expected to grow exponentially in the next decade. Internet penetration in India has received massive push owing to three factors – 1) Disruption in the telecom sector by Jio, 2) Demonetisation forcing to adapt to digital payment modes 3) and the present covid crisis forcing us to use more online shopping/payments. With 560 million Indians using net, and 329 million shopping online, the stage is set for the online gifting space to skyrocket in India.

But here lies the catch, amid all these predictions nobody could have imagined about the corona pandemic that has thrown all the estimates into dustbin. Now, nobody is certain when the estimates would be scaled. This has pushed all the market experts in jittery and to rework on their studies. Especially, amid the call for essential services worldwide, world gifting industry has come to standstill. Though gifting might not suit in the standard definition of essential services worldwide, but emotion is the soul of humanity and gifting is a medium of showcasing our attachments with our loved ones. To keep this essence alive, world gifting players have to redefine & innovate their business model.

India being the second largest market and amid the call of diversified supply chain, India is set to be driver of the global business in post covid19 world. This provides Indian Entrepreneurs & CXOs a golden ‘opportunity in crisis’ moment. This is the ideal moment for Indian gifting players to emerge & establish themselves as the next big Global Indian Consumer brand in an industry which is yet to witness a giant player.

Adapting to this reality, most of the players have quickly revamped their supply chain, starting from providing protective equipment to workers, to the temperature details of the person involved in the handling of gifts to the customers. Some have also adopted hyperlocal delivery model to remain competitive. However, these are not enough. Innovativeness in the model is the need of hour. Gifting industry has always been fragile & to retain customer loyalty as well as attaining to his personalised gifting needs, new model has to be adopted, like we have advanced for an annual recurring subscription model which has significantly high customer retention. Moreover, the need of the hour is more digitisation in our offerings like we have launched some of the quite innovative & superb digital products like on demand personalized celebrity messages, personalised gift cards, Virtual birthday parties with the band, digital albums etc. These digital products not only redefine the gifting experience but also make our business shockproof to any future pandemics.

As the saying goes, ‘crisis reveals the true character’ Indian gifting players must display their astuteness and innovativeness in post covid19 world. Only time will tell, how much dominant space they can occupy in the rapidly expanding online gifting space. However, the success mantra lies less in actions and more in intentions and to dominate the gifting segment one must take pride in being “the harbinger of happiness for millions and acting as a bridge of emotions to connect the people’s heart.”

Author Bio

Praveen Singh, CEO, FRINZA

An MBA graduate from SIBM Bengaluru and one of the youngest Penguin India author of the book Loch20+, Praveen is a zestful young leader who aims to change the way the word gift is perceived currently.

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