Why sending a overdue gift isn’t as bad as you think – and better overdue than never

If finding the right gift and making sure the recipient receives it on time leaves you feeling anxious, you’re not alone. More than half of Americans say so that giving gifts stresses them out.

Concerns about on-time deliveries are so common that people decide to take time off deadlines for each shipping service. And if you don’t manage to meet these deadlines, they are useful now etiquette guides offering advice on how to inform the recipient.

If you sent overdue gifts thanks shipping delays, stocks exhausted or even good old-fashioned ones procrastinationour novel study may bring some positive news.

In a series of studies soon to be published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, we found that people overestimate the negative consequences of sending a overdue gift.

I try to follow the standards

Why do people tend to overestimate these consequences? Our findings show that people pay more attention to them when giving gifts to gift-giving norms than the recipients.

For example, other researchers have found that people are reluctant to give used products as gifts because the norm is that gifts should be novel. In reality, however, many people are often open to receiving used items.

We found that this discrepancy also applies to beliefs about the importance of timing. Many people worry that a overdue gift will be a signal that they don’t care about the recipient. They then fear that their relationship will suffer.

In reality, however, these fears are largely unfounded. Gift recipients worry much less about when the gift will arrive.

Unfortunately, in addition to causing unnecessary worry, being overly sensitive about a overdue gift can also impact the gift you decide to buy.

Slow compensation

To see how concerns about tardiness influence gift choices, we conducted an online survey ahead of Mother’s Day 2021. 201 adults entered the lottery. They could choose to send their mother a cheaper gift basket that would arrive in time for the occasion, or a more steep one that would arrive overdue.

Concerns about delays led almost 70% of participants to choose the cheaper and faster option.

In another study, we conducted the same type of lottery on Father’s Day and found similar results.

In addition to finding that people will choose inferior products to ensure faster delivery, we also found that donors may believe that they can compensate for the delay with effort.

In another online study of 805 adults, we found that participants were less likely to expect that a overdue birth would harm the relationship if they signaled their concern for the baby in other ways. For example, they believed that hand-assembling an item rather than buying it pre-assembled could make up for a overdue gift.

Better overdue than never?

If sending something overdue isn’t as bad as expected, you may be wondering if you can just send nothing at all.

We warn against going this route.

In another online study of 903 participants, we found that recipients felt that receiving nothing was more likely to harm the relationship than receiving something with a delay of up to two months.

This means that for those receiving gifts, it’s better overdue than never.

This might be something to keep in mind, even if it’s something novel game console, figurine Or virtual reality headset is sold out during the holiday season. It could still be a nice surprise if it arrives in January or February.