Learn What Works With Giftly’s 2025 Holiday Gifting Report

Holiday budgets are under pressure. Inflation's lingering, tariffs are tightening margins, and economic uncertainty is making both consumers and companies rethink where every dollar goes.

But even in a downturn, one thing hasn’t changed: companies will still spend billions trying to show employees appreciation. The question is whether that spend actually works.

According to Gift A Feeling’s Shared Secrets Lab, over $9.5 billion is wasted every year on unwanted gifts. The average recipient tosses or forgets about $71 worth of gifts.

If you’re responsible for gifting for employees, clients, or partners this holiday season, you can’t afford to rely on instinct, tradition, or trends from three years ago. You need data.

This report brings together the most important stats and insights from consumer behavior studies and ecommerce forecasts to show what’s changing in 2025 and how to make every gift count.

The rise of flexible gifting

Physical goods still dominate corporate gifting—but their grip is slipping.

According to the North American Community Hub, consumer spending on traditional gifts like clothing, books, and candy is stable or slowly declining. Meanwhile, digital gift cards and experience-based gifts are gaining serious ground.

In 2025, 44% of holiday shoppers plan to buy gift cards. Subscription boxes, e-books, streaming services, and even digital game credits are seeing steady growth. And it’s not just consumer behavior. More companies are turning to digital gifts to simplify operations, reduce waste, and reach distributed teams.

Digital gifting cuts out the guesswork. It sidesteps supply chain issues, skips the branded fleece nobody asked for, and gives the recipient something more important than a box: choice.

Platforms like Giftly make that shift easy. You can send to one person or thousands at once and brand your gift cards your way.

Personalization Isn’t Optional Anymore

The old model of sending one branded gift, or gift cards to the same retailer, to everyone assumes people want the same thing or value the same brands. They don’t.

According to Basis Technologies, 41% of consumers say they’ll stop buying from a brand that doesn’t align with their personal values. That mindset shows up in gifting too. When a gift feels impersonal or off-brand to the recipient, it misses the mark.

In a workplace spanning generations, locations, and beliefs, finding one gift that fits everyone is next to impossible.

Personalization today means giving people choice. Something they can use in a way that reflects their values, whether that’s supporting small businesses, avoiding waste, or just getting something useful.

Flexible gifting through digital cards or customizable rewards makes that possible. It lets you meet a wide range of needs without turning gifting into a logistical mess that eats up your budget unnecessarily.

People Shop Where They Scroll

In 2025, 21% of holiday shoppers bought gifts directly through social media. That’s up from just 12% the year before. And it's not just the number of shoppers that changed—their commitment did too.

According to Bazaarvoice, 55% of shoppers said they spent between 11% and 50% of their holiday budget on social platforms this year. Last year, that number was 33%. Even more telling, the share of shoppers who spent over half their holiday budget on social jumped from 9% to 15%.

Influencers, micro-trends, niche brands, and algorithm-driven discovery are now shaping what people buy. That means companies can’t count on chasing one big, universal “it” gift anymore. There isn’t one.

Instead of guessing what’s trending next week, more teams are moving to platforms like Giftly that let recipients choose how and where to spend. It’s a way to keep gifting relevant without chasing the algorithm.

Mobile Is the Front Door to Gifting

If your gifting strategy doesn’t work on mobile, it doesn’t work.

According to eMarketer, mobile commerce will drive over 90% of the net increase in holiday ecommerce sales this year. Mobile penetration is expected to hit 56.5% by the end of 2025. That means more than half of all shoppers are skipping laptops entirely.

This isn’t just about where people shop. It’s also about how they browse, compare, redeem, and react. If a gift takes six clicks to claim or opens in a clunky desktop experience, you’ve already lost them.

For companies, that means every part of the gifting experience — from the email that delivers it to the moment they spend it — needs to feel frictionless on a phone.

Platforms like Giftly are built with that in mind. Digital gifts can be opened instantly, redeemed in a few taps, and customized without the usual hassle. No app downloads. No weird logins. Just a clean, mobile-native experience that matches how people actually shop in 2025.

In 2025, the right gift is the one they pick themselves

The data is clear: consumer behavior is changing fast, and corporate gifting strategies need to change with it.

People are shopping earlier, spending more on mobile, and making decisions based on values, not just price. They’re discovering gifts through social platforms, avoiding brands that don’t align with what they care about, and expecting experiences that work seamlessly across devices.

All of that points to one thing—choice matters more than ever.

Giftly helps companies adapt to this shift. Whether you’re sending to one person or a thousand, you can give a digital gift that’s fast, flexible, and easy to use. It works across teams, time zones, and preferences without sacrificing brand quality or experience.

In a season where everyone’s trying to do more with less, giving people the freedom to choose is the best gift. Ready to get ahead of the trends this holiday season? Let’s talk.