Who came out on top? Our 2022 ‘Tis the Season Gift Exchange Trend Report is here!
In the 2021 Holiday Season, we continued to have an enormous response from companies, families and groups of friends excited to continue their White Elephant traditions with our virtual platform. Between November 2021 and January 2022, we hosted over 5,000 gift exchanges where over 75,000 gifts were given by over 74,000 friends, family and colleagues.
As a result, we are able to continue our now annual tradition of taking our large database of gifts and games and mining it to find fun and interesting facts about what White Elephant gift exchanges look like across the nation. Introducing our 2022 ‘Tis the Season Gift Exchange Trend Report. Check out our infographic and some additional highlights below! You can find the full report here.
Note: there is no personal data being shared within this report or to any third parties. All of these stats are anonymized and summarized.
TOP RETAILERS
The top 5 retailers remain unchanged & on top in this year’s roundup! Amazon is still king, amounting to a whopping 72% of gifts submitted on White Elephant Online. Up next, #2 is Etsy, continuing to be a great place to find unique and individualized gifts. Target came in as #3, Uncommon Goods at #4, and Walmart at #5.
The rest of the top 10 went through a lot of change. Yeti (#6) and Urban Outfitters (#8) upped their holiday gift-swap game, raising their ranks from last year. So did 3 new entrants to the top 10: Starbucks (#7), Apple (#9) and REI (#10). Starbucks rolled in on the strength of their gift cards as a gift, while Apple’s AirTag ended up being a top 10 White Elephant gift, helping them secure a spot.
But where some succeed, others must fall. 3 Retailers fell off our list this year: Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, and Barnes & Noble. We’ll see if they can make a comeback next year!
TOP GIFTS
Two out of three gift themes remained the most popular from last year: Mugs and Smart Speakers, with Games edging out Books for #3.
The top White Elephant Gift this year was the Echo Dot, which actually moved up from the #2 spot last year. It was actually the only gift, alongside the Exploding Kittens Game, to be in the top 10 two years in a row.
One of our favorite entries was the #3 most popular gift: From Crook to Cook: The Snoop Dogg Cookbook.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
The longest game played was 2 hours and 38 minutes long!
The largest game had 100 players!
The most expensive gift given was $1,000 (though the average was a much more modest $28)!
The state that played the most games was California!