The Rules of Re-Gifting

Salina Gill: I am Salina Gill. I am a professional image consultant and a personal shopper. Today, we are talking about how to buy the perfect gift? Right now, we are going to talk about the rules of re-gifting. Did you know there are actual rules to re-gifting? Yes, there are. First, you definitely don't want to give the gift that no one wants. If someone gives you a book about things like natural cures, now that thing everyone doesn't want it. There are lot of people who are not really interested in natural cures, don't re-gift it; either save it, give it to charity or just put it away in your closet. Maybe you might need it later, but there are certain gifts that people would just do not want. Another example might be something like a grill, a Foreman Grill, not specifically this grill but maybe this type of grill; but if we are talking about the George Foreman Grill, who doesn't have one? If everyone has a gift, there is no point in gifting it. Either get a gift receipt and take it back or just keep it or give it to charity. Also, if we are going to re-gift a gift, put fresh wrapping paper on it. Don't just try to tag off when you give the person that gift. At least take the wrapping paper off, take it out of the bag, take it out of the box and re-package it, if you are going to make in a new gift, make it look like a new gift. Also when you re-gift, besides taking off the packaging, make sure you take off any tags. If I get a gift that says, To Shirley, and is meant for me and my name is Salina, I am going to know that that gift is not for me. So, definitely make sure that you take all the tags off, or name tags, all those, just take everything off the package. So when you re-gift the gift, the person does not know it was intended for someone else. Also take time to re-gift. If someone gives you a gift and you don't want it and you know it is appropriate to re-gift, wait at least a year or two to give that gift to someone else. Let the whole gift cycle go by. Let the whole year go by, a year of holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, celebrations before you give that gift to someone. You do not want that same gift to show up and two months later on somebody's birthday when they gave it to you for your graduation. Along the same line, if you are going to wait to give someone a gift, try to give someone a gift that lives nowhere close to you. If you live, let us say, in Florida, re-gift the gift to someone who lives in South Dakota or in Washington State or in California or if you live in Texas, maybe someone who lives in Iowa or North Dakota or Maine. We'll try to cross state lines, so you have no chance of giving that gift back to someone and they find out about it. One last thing, make sure that if you get a gift with distinguishing marks like a monogram or engraving or a name that has special nameplate for you; do not re-gift it, keep it, charity, give it to your son, daughter, brother, sister, somebody who is in your family, but not to someone else who visit. They will definitely know, the gift is not for them. For example, if you receive monogram towels or maybe a robe, do not try to cut out the monogram and give it to them. Just keep the gift, I mean, you can even trash it, it's kind of tacky, but at the very least, someone does not know that you gave their gift away. Now, we are going to talk about some presentation tips and universal buying tips.