Gumtree says listings for unwanted gifts go up by at least 40% after the holiday season.
According to a recent survey by the online classifieds platform, nearly 60% of South Africans received an unwanted gift during the festive season last year.
Participants indicated the worst gifts were novelty items (40%), toiletry gift sets (35%), clothing (7%) and d'ecor items (7%), while 5% would prefer not to receive perfume and 3% indicated their disdain for kitchen appliances.
"Perfume, clothing and even gadgets are the items that most often end up on Gumtree, still in their original packaging and entirely unused," says Claire Cobbledick, head of Gumtree SA.
"Savvy shoppers can usually pick up these items in January at extremely low prices."
Close to 40% of these gifts were worth between R100-R500, while the value of 8% exceeded R1 000.
The most common reasons gifts end up online is because the recipient already owned such an item (27%), or didn't like the style (27%). Others rejected the item because they didn't find it useful (22%) or interesting (16%).
"We tend to purchase items that we are interested in ourselves, and not everyone is attuned to what their loved ones would appreciate," says Cobbledick.
"Others are quick to admit that they aren't great gift givers and simply buy high-value items off the cuff."
A poor gift choice is not necessarily a bad thing for the recipient, though. Cobbledick says 64% of the participants said they were willing to sell an unwanted gift if they were to receive one this year. "The average person surveyed received at least two unwanted gifts, valued at between R500 and R1 000."
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