Self Gift-Giving Behaviors of Thai Consumers and their Brand Relationships

Abstract

         The objectives of this research were to investigate Thai consumers’self-gift giving behaviors and their self-gift giving brand relationships in terms of brand familiarity and experience, brand preferences and self-brand congruence and to compare the brand relationships classified by the consumers’ demographics. Survey research was employed by distributing online questionnaires with the sample group consisted of 400 Thai consumers aged 20 years and over who had purchased gifts for themselves within the past 6 months. A convenience sampling method was used. Data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics, one-way analysis of variance and multiple comparisons.
          The research found that top three self-gift giving motivations of Thai consumers were “when you want to do good to yourself,” “when you want to reward yourself,” and “when you have money to spare.”For their self-gift giving behaviors, Thai consumers were usually purchased gifts when they wanted and the top three self-gifts giving products types were “clothing, shoes, and accessories,” “food and beverages”and “beauty and skin care products.” The value of the gifts was between 1,001-5,000 baht. Most of them decided to buy gifts for themselves by their own and on their own salary. They searched gifts’ information through online media, had a plan to collect money in advance, and bought the gifts at department stores and online channels. When testing 3 hypotheses, the results revealed that the gender and age of Thai consumers did not affect all aspects of brand relationships. Meanwhile, the education level, marital status, occupation, and income of Thai consumers affect their self gift-giving brand relationships in terms of brand familiarity and experience, brand preferences or self-brand congruence at statistically significant at the 0.05-0.001 level.