How gift hampers are setting a new benchmark for thoughtful gift-giving

This is branded content.

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic getting firmly in the way of celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, and other personal milestones, Australians have been discovering new ways to 'be there' for their loved ones.

Video calling has taken the place of weekly family dinners, letter-writing has come back in vogue, and many of us have streamed films remotely in order to have pandemic-era family movie nights.

Alongside this, gift hampers in Australia have become more than just a thoughtful gesture, with many taking this opportunity for gift-giving as a means of providing their friends and loved ones with a tangible display of their support and affection.

Here is why gift hampers have become the ultimate gift to give in 2021.

A consistently strong selling point for gift hampers is that they are undeniably exciting to unpack and explore. As a mishmash of smaller presents, gift hampers are quite sincerely a gift that can be enjoyed for an extensive period of time, especially if the items in your gift hamper have a long shelf life or are non-perishable.

As Aussie gift hampers also tend to include artisanal Australian products, engaging with your gift hamper can be an experience in itself. Taking the opportunity to brew a nice mug of bush tea or slip into a pair of 100 per cent Aussie wool socks are experiences that your gift recipient may never tire of.

These gifts that can be enjoyed in peace and comfort are likely to leave an immense positive impact on your gift recipient too.

In this sense, gift hampers can be observed to be one of few experiential gifts that can actually be savoured for long after they're originally received.

Preparing or sourcing a gift hamper can oftentimes be an elegantly thoughtful response to a themed celebration or occasion.

As gift hampers themselves are incredibly versatile, they can be organised around specific themes or events, like Father's Day, graduations, or milestone birthdays.

Throughout the pandemic, themed gift hampers have also been used as a method of uniting segmented celebrations, allowing people to celebrate special occasions in lockdown without even having to leave their homes.

For instance, if you're celebrating your hen's night during a lockdown, sending a bachelorette party themed gift hamper to all of your bridesmaids will naturally allow you to enjoy the same treats together via a video call, resulting in a remote yet unequivocally joyous celebration.

Thoughtful gift-giving is more or less synonymous with gifting for the individual rather than for an occasion. The best gifts are personalised and are reflective of their recipient. The issue with personalised gifting is simply that people are multi-faceted, and no single gift is likely to wholly encapsulate the multidimensionality of that gift's recipient.

With gift hampers, however, you have an opportunity to gather many small gifts that are all reflective of your intended recipient in their own ways, and bring them all together to create a highly personalised and thus, highly special and thoughtful gift experience.

As gift hampers can virtually be made up of anything, gift-givers have a rare opportunity to create a gift that can appeal to all sides of their recipient, demonstrating with each little puzzle piece of their larger gift hamper that they know their intended recipient on a deeper level.

The knowledge that you're seen and loved is just part of the magic inspired by personalised gift-giving.

Finally, it's been all the rage throughout Australia's lockdowns to send care packages to friends and family members who may be interstate or limited by their local lockdown restrictions.

Whilst what constitutes a care package can vary greatly, the general idea is to provide loved ones with treats and resources that can keep them feeling positive throughout lockdown or even just generally during their separation from you.

The potential for gift hampers to act as care packages is likely one of the reasons why gift hampers have been growing in popularity over the last few years.

~

Regardless of what fuels your decision to give a hamper or basket to your friends or loved ones, it's clear that these unique gifts are undeniably thoughtful. They can prove to be excellent gifts for a variety of occasions, and can even become foundational elements of remote celebrations.

For their versatility alone, it's likely gift hampers will remain one of Australia's most popular modern gifts for a few more Christmases at the very least.