When it comes to gift baskets, men and women have somewhat different reasons, tastes and budgets according to a recent gift baskets survey by online gift retailer It’s In The Stars.

Men buy more gift baskets for colleagues, clients, employees
While both sexes buy gift baskets for friends (82.1% of men vs 78.4% of women) and family (69.2% vs 74.8%), men are far more likely than women to buy them for colleagues (64.1% vs 36.0%), clients (64.1% vs 21.6%), and employees (35.9% vs 18.0%).

Gift baskets are an easy, no-fuss gift option
Since women are regarded by both sexes as better gift-buyers, it may be no surprise that more women than men see gift baskets as easy, no-fuss gift options (72.3% vs 64.1%). Women are more likely than men to believe that gift baskets make an impressive-looking gift (67.0% vs 51.3%).

Nonetheless, since men buy gift baskets for a much wider range of celebratory events than women, have more cash to spend, and often forget birthdays and anniversaries, this may explain why they are more likely than women to view gift baskets as last-minute emergency gift options (59.0% vs 49.1%), fun (53.8% vs 50.9%) and affordable (48.7% vs 25.9%).

Men spend more than women on gift baskets
Three in four men (76.9%) spend over $100 on gift baskets with their top five inclusions being gift certificates (71.8%), jams & spreads (64.1%), chocolates & sweets and champagne/wine/spirits (61.5% each), and BBQ food & accessories (59.0%).

Two-thirds of women (66.7%) spend under $100, typically selecting gift baskets with chocolates (69.4%), champagne/wine/spirits (60.4%), baby toys & clothing (57.7%), bath/beauty/body products (55.9%), and flowers (50.5%).

Men more likely to buy gift baskets with gift certificates
Chocolate and champagne are perennially popular gift basket inclusions for everyone but since men spend much more on gift baskets than women,  it would seem they might also have the money to include gift certificates to extend the gift experience for the recipient with 71.0% of men including gift certificates vs only 22.5% of women.

They are also far more willing to spend more on a gift basket that includes a personalised gift than women (89.5% vs 76.1%).

Men and women have different occasions for gift baskets
The top five most popular gift occasions for men to give gift baskets are Christmas (73.0%), birthdays (67.6%), Mother’s Day (59.5%), and Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day (56.8% each) while the top five gift basket occasions for women are new babies (74.1%), birthdays (65.7%), Christmas (55.6%), and Mother’s Day and housewarmings/new homes (36.1% each).

Overall, the top three gift basket occasions are new babies (69.0%), birthdays (66.2%) and Christmas (60.0%).

The only two gift occasions where men and women buy in near-identical rates are birthdays (67.6% vs 65.7%), and housewarmings/new homes (37.8% vs 36.1%).

Men and women are equally likely to buy gift baskets with champagne/wine/spirits (61.5% vs 60.4%), bath/beauty/body products (56.4% vs 55.9%), and fruit (30.8% vs 30.6%).

Have you ever sent a gift basket? If you have, who was it for? What was the gift occasion ie a new baby, Christmas, a housewarming, engagement gift or Mother’s Day – or was there some other reason you wanted to celebrate?

If you’ve never sent one, what items would you include? Chocolate? Champagne? Baby items? Flowers? Gift certificates?

Take a minute to fill out a fun gift baskets survey and you’ll receive a $20 gift certificate code to spend towards any astrology report on http://www.itsinthestarsonline.com.

The survey is at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GiftBasketsSurvey. The survey closes 31 July 2010.

Father’s Day is coming on up Sunday 20 June in the UK, US and a raft of other places; however we can wait until 5 September for it in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Canada.

In a new Father’s Day survey by Wakefield Research on behalf of Western Union, Dads seem to get even more mistreated than their counterparts on Mother’s Day, with nearly half of the men interviewed saying they had to pretend they liked their gift.

(I am guessing the other half did not even pretend.)

About of a third of Dads have to jump up and down and say “yay!” when they get power tools (despite the fact they still haven’t put that shelf up you’ve been asking about since 2005), while 20% are equally as excited (not) in anticipation of receiving yet more cologne. Books and golf balls are also alarmingly over-represented.

While most mothers want their families around them, I’d suspect most Dads just want the day off sans l’enfants…

According to a Father’s Day gifts study we did last year, more women than men make an effort to celebrate Father’s Day, it’s the women who get upset about a lack of effort (not the Dads), and they’d prefer personalised gifts if possible.

Have you ever bought a gift basket (or contributed towards one) for a family member, friend, colleague, client or employee?

Perhaps you bought a gift basket for Christmas, the arrival of a new baby, to express your sympathy, or your congratulations?

Please take part in a quick survey at www.surveymonkey.com/s/GiftBasketsSurvey to let us know your experiences and opinions regarding gift baskets.

To thank you for your time, you’ll receive via email (within 24 hours of filling out the survey) a $20 gift certificate code to spend towards astrology reports at http://www.itsinthestarsonline.com with our thanks!

It’s always fascinating to see who buys them, when, and for how much!

The survey should take no more than 2 minutes to complete and it’s completely anonymous. Thanks in advance for your help!

www.surveymonkey.com/s/GiftBasketsSurvey

Despite plastic gift cards being universally popular with consumers, only one in 10 retailers currently stock them, with more than half saying they have nothing to do with their business.

The online survey conducted by Gifts By The Stars at http://gifts-by-the-stars-online.com found that 98.5% of respondents had bought at least one plastic gift card for a friend, family member or colleague.

“According to the survey, 83.1% think plastic gift cards are an easy gift option, 78.5% say they’re great for last-minute gift emergencies and 75.4% believe they’re quick,” said Elizabeth Ball, who writes the Gifts By The Stars blog.

“Respondents also saw gift cards as affordable (38.5%), safe (26.2%), fun (20.0%), although very few perceived them as a unique (4.6%) gift option,” she said.

Affordability, of course, depends on how much you’re spending. People were most likely to purchase plastic gift cards valued at $50 (81.8%), $20 (63.6%), $30 (50.0%), $100 (40.9%), and $10 (31.8%) with 13.7% opting to spend $150 or more.

“Surprisingly though, although nearly everyone has bought at least one card, it seems plastic gift cards are sold only by the biggest retailers,” Elizabeth Ball said.

“It seems most smaller retailers can’t see what value they can add to their business with 52.6% saying gift cards had nothing to do with their business.”

Only 10.6% of retailers sold plastic gift cards in their bricks-and-mortar stores and/or online, although 5.3% plan to sell them in the near future. Paper gift certificates were much more popular with 19.3% of retailers selling them online and/or in-store, while 12.3% of retailers sold electronic gift certificates through their websites.

Impulse purchases have been proven to work so retailers will sell more of them if they’re within reach. The survey found consumers expected to see plastic gift cards displayed in a bricks-and-mortar store in their own box next to the cash register (44.8%), hanging on a rack (35.8%), on the wall behind the cash register (14.9%), or on the shelves in their own box (4.5%).

Retailers are so doubtful about their ability to sell plastic gift cards that 54.5% would order 20 gift cards or less at a time, with only 36.4% willing to order 50 or more.

As soon as the last heart-shaped box of chocolate has been cleared out of the supermarket following Valentine’s Day, it seems the shelves are immediately stocked with chocolate goodies for Easter.

Think back to 2009. Did you actually buy yourself any Easter eggs or boxes of chocolate for your birthday? Or did you buy none for yourself but quite a few for others?

Scientists have confirmed that other people are hell – sorry – that other people are great at ruining your diet. Scientist Juliano Laran at the University of Miami found that you use more self-control when it comes to making your own choices about fattening fun things like chocolate, but that you’d choose indulgent diet-breakers for others.

Research respondents were asked to choose four items from a list of 16 foods, comprising healthy food items (eg raisins, celery sticks) and indulgent products like chocolate, doughnuts, ice cream and so on. Half the participants were to choose items for themselves and half selected foods for others. Those who chose foods for themselves tended to select two items that were healthy and two that were indulgent. Those selecting for other people chose mainly indulgent foods.

It’s not clear if the people selecting fattening foods did it to please and delight others (who’d be thrilled with a Tupperwear container of celery sticks?) or if they’re actually dastardly frenemies out to ruin your diet plans.

If you do plan to give an Easter gift this year to someone who’s say, a little round around the edges, give them the real gift of helping them to stay healthy, and give them a non-chocolate present any bunny would love - perhaps one with karats?

What’s cheaper and quicker for you to organise for your mum for Mother’s Day on Sunday 9 May (in Australia)?

Option 1: Start the car. Drive to the closest department store. Find a car park. Battle through panicked customers trying to find something for their mother. Line up at the cash register. Pay. Try and find your car again. Drive home. Wrap it. Write out a card. Drive to your mother’s place for Mother’s Day. Time taken: at least 90 minutes.

Option 2: Call your mother on Mother’s Day on the phone. Talk to her for at least 10 minutes. Time taken; at least 10 minutes.

A nationwide UK study (by of course, a mobile phone company) has found 46% of mothers want a phone call on Mother’s Day, which is only in second place to a vist (51%). Not even a visit plus gift… They just want to hear from you.

In third place was a card (44%)  – again, they’re not expecting very much, and in fourth place, flowers (42%).

Chocolates, perfume, CDs, DVDs and experience days were far less important and wine came in at 10th place, with only 18% wanting that as a Mother’s Day gift.

Those aged 18-30 were particularly naughty at not dedicating just 10 minutes of their time to their mother on the phone, with 21% saying how busy they were (on a Sunday?), 16% explaining the short call on a lack of phone credit and 3% even pretending the phone had gone dead.

If you imagine Mother’s Day as the equivalent to your mother as Valentine’s Day to your lover, and pulled that sort of behavour, she’d dump you for sure!

Come on Gen Y – pull your socks up!

Plastic pre-loaded gift cards are big business these days and it seems almost everyone has given or at least received one for a birthday gift!

Have you ever bought a gift card? If you haven’t, what would you spend? Where do you expect to see them in a store? And if you’re a retailer, are you stocking them?

Fill out our fun, quick, anonymous gift card survey and let us know!

A survey by the American National Confectioners Association has found that ony 6% of men receive Valentines Day gifts.

The average man spends $130 on chocolate, cards and other gifts (boy, that is a LOT of chocolate – or a lot of other Valentines Day gifts – take part in OUR survey). In the US, where Things Are A Little Different, children receive the most candy and gifts at 39%. Mothers and wives dole out Valentines Day gifts to their partners and children, and come in second place at 36%.

Between the mothers/wives and the kids, they are six times more likely to receive gifts than anyone else, including pets.

Isn’t chocolate bad for Rover?!

Three in four homebuyers receive nada, zip, nothing at all from their real estate agents as a thank you for shelling HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars, but more than six in 10 homebuyers would use them again and recommend them to others looking to buy a home if they did.

The Real Estate Agents Gifts Survey conducted online by It’s In The Stars found that if you want that bottle of champagne to celebrate your massive purchase, you’ll be much more likely to receive it once you’ve bought oh, three homes or more.

Overall, only 26% of homebuyers received a gift from their real estate agent with the first homebuyers the least likely to receive anything. Ironically of course, if you kept them sweet from the start, they might recommend to their friends who are in the market for a house, consider you for their second, third and holidays homes…but no.

Homebuyers were instead more likely to receive gifts the more homes they had bought. Of the 38% who had bought one home, only 37% of those had received a gift. This rose to 43% for the 23% who had bought two homes, and to 51% to the 39% who had bought three homes or more.

Wine or champagne is the most gift most given (31%), followed by food hampers (13%), flowers and plants (11%), homewares (10%), promotional items thoughtfully including the real estate agency’s logo and personalised gifts for the homebuyer and/or their family (9% each) and gift certificates (8%).

Of those who did receive gifts, 53% said they cost under $50, 26% estimated $50-$100, 16% guessed $100-$200 while only a lucky 5% received gifts valued at over $200.

So – who’s more generous? Boutique firms or the major franchises? Seventy percent of respondents used a major franchise, 22% a boutique firm while 8% dealt directly with the vendor. I was surprised to discover that homeowners were more likely to receive a gift from a major franchise  than a boutique firm (47% vs 34%).

The major franchises were more likely than the boutique agencies to give gifts under $50 (58% vs 50%) but none of the boutiques gave gifts worth over $200 while the 8% of the franchise agents did. Smaller agencies were much more likely than the franchises to spend a mid-price range of $50-$200 (50% vs 32%).

While it is obviously better for the agent to give something rather than nothing at all, if he or she chooses the gift wisely, it could be worth hundreds of thousands of commission in referrals.

The survey found 81% of homeowners would tell their friends, family and colleagues what gift/s they received, 63% would use that agency again when they next bought a house, and 61% would recommend them to others in the house-hunting market if their real estate agent gave them a thank-you gift.