KOREASCHOLAR

This study identifies the best gift ever as a new type of gift with specific characteristics that make it different from the ideal, „perfect gift‟. For this, we draw on consumers‟ lived experiences to understand the underlying traits of their most cherished gifts. This understanding is of great importance for retailers, who strive to assist consumers on their search for the „perfect gift‟ (Mintel, 2015). As Belk (1996) suggests, the „perfect gift‟ involves sacrifice, altruism, luxury, surprise and is uniquely appropriate for the recipient. Although this concept has been widely used in the literature, there remain two main limitations to address. First, existing work focused on the „perfect gift‟ is conceptual and considers this type of gift in its ideal form, thus neglecting actual experiences of givers and receivers as consumers of their most special gifts. Although some empirical research exists around the subject (Tuten & Kiecker, 2009), these studies assume the „perfect gift‟ conceptualisation proposed by Belk (1996) or suggest that “the „perfect gift‟ metaphor is not always an accurate prototype for giving” (Otnes, 2018, p.222). In addition to this, the retail environment has changed considerably since Belk‟s (1996) work. The new digital world reconfigures the definitions of gift-giving contextualised in a pre-digital landscape (Belk, 2013; Otnes, 2018), raising questions for example, of whether digital gifts can be perfect (Belk, 2013). In order to address these concerns, we propose to study participants‟ experiences of their best gift ever (both given and received); to this effect, we conducted 27 face-to-face semi-structured interviews. We did not prompt participants with any characteristics of the „perfect gift‟ from the literature but rather focused on capturing participants‟ insights about their best gift ever in their own terms. While we drew insights on the categorisation of the perfect gift proposed by Belk (1996), we adopted an interpretivist perspective allowing themes to emerge from the data (Holbrook & O‟Shaughnessy, 1988). Our findings show that the best gift ever might not be perfect but it is attainable and proposed as a new concept to understand gifts. This extends existing research beyond the notion that "the perfect gift, like most perfection, remains an ideal more than a reality in our gift giving" (Belk, 1996, p.76). Our analysis suggests that the best gift ever is: 1) experiential (i.e. symbolic meanings are associated with the shared giver-receiver experience), 2) memorable (i.e. the experience is remembered vividly and gift meaning evolves overtime); and 3) delightful (i.e. experience of deep emotions of delight, excitement and pleasure). Finally, although the best gift ever shares characteristics with those of the perfect gift including appropriateness, sacrifice, altruism and luxury, our data shows that these characteristics defining the ideal perfect gift (Belk, 1996) are not necessarily met by the best gift ever in most cases. That is, not all of these traits were simultaneously present within the same best gift ever experience and some of them were not important for our participants. Practitioners could support customers in the creation of the best gift ever by helping to build memorable and delightful gift experiences, the value of which can be enhanced over time.

• Ines Branco-Illodo(Nottingham Trent University, UK)
• Teresa Heath(University of Nottingham, UK)