Should we all be using online wish lists for gifting?

[It is estimated] that $35 billion is being thrown away, around the world, in the form of poorly chosen Christmas gifts

BBC’s 50 Things That Made The Modern Economy – Santa Claus, December 17th 2018

For a number of years now, I’ve asked people buying me birthday and Christmas gifts to use my online wish list and I’ve converted a lot of them to doing the same.

In the modern, throw-away economy, struggling with our own consumerism and waste, maybe it’s not such a bad idea. In many cases, well, we’re not very good at buying presents otherwise.

Research suggests that recipients are delighted to receive the gift they’ve already specified. Givers are deceiving themselves that an off-piste choice will be more welcome.

BBC’s 50 Things That Made The Modern Economy – Santa Claus, December 17th 2018

It may not be a surprise someone to get something they’ve already chosen, but you can pretty much guarantee they’ll like it.

Some of the worst gifts I’ve personally received have been those that weren’t from my wish list; items then relegated to the back of the cupboard and sent to a charity shop or simply thrown away. And I’m no better. My wife was always complaining about her phone running out of battery, so I bought her a compact power bank, resplendent in a Cath Kidston-style pattern. If ever a power-bank was made for her, it was this. But she never used it. An unexpected gift it was, but one she had no interest in.

Yes, a wish list is boring and your gifts come with no surprise as a result. But they’re needed items and rarely wasted.

As we get older, many people talk about not exchanging gifts with their family as they don’t need anything more. But does that mean they have everything? Of course not – there’ll always be a DVD or something that they want. Wish lists are a great way to record these little things that we’d like but not necessarily at that point in time. And a great way to remember things that, in the middle of summer, we think would be useful but are forgotten about by the time Christmas is upon us.

Which one you use is up to you – if you shop exclusively at Amazon, then their own wish list will be for you. For everyone else, my recommendation is Things To Get Me, which is the one I use.