NEW DELHI: Uber and Deloitte are among companies tweaking Diwali gifting this year in a bid to make it seem cleaner and greener. Sweets, chocolates, dry fruits, fire crackers and home décor appear to be passé. Exotic Icelandic moss from the Arctic, coloured glass bottles, stationery items with plantable seeds, solar power banks, health hampers and air-purifying plants are apparently the preferred corporate gifts this festive season.
The Indian gifting market was worth $65 billion in April with corporate gifting accounting for 15-20%, according to a white paper by Qwikcilver, which offers gifting solutions and also tracks the sector. Deloitte India is using Diwali to tell employees to replace plastic with eco-friendly products.
“We are all getting a glass bottle this Diwali — to reduce consumption of plastic/paper cups for water — and to encourage everyone to keep hydrated through the work day,” said chief talent officer SV Nathan. “We have also discontinued use of bottled water in our meeting rooms.”
Then there’s that moss. “Through our Diwali gift this year, we want to reiterate our vision of a world that is shared, electric and multi-modal, much like the qualities of the Icelandic moss we are gifting,” said Vishpala Reddy, head of human resources for Asia-Pacific at Uber India. “The moss has the ability to clean the air and hydrate itself from the atmosphere for a period of five years.”
Until last year, personalised gift items, sweet boxes and dry fruits were popular.
Employees at PNB Housing Finance are getting plantable pencils or ‘plant-cils’, which have a seed pouch at the end that includes coriander and tomato, among others.
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The theme at some new-age companies is sustainability. Automation Anywhere is giving employees power banks that use solar energy while Dunzo is handing out chocolate crackers (to replace firecrackers) and a plant (instead of a diya) to staff.
“We want to help people have a cracker of a Diwali, without bursting a single cracker,” said a Dunzo spokesperson.
“Corporates have become open to gifting items like organic rangoli powder, greeting cards with seed pouches, diyas filled with ghee instead of wax or chemicals and healthier sweets like ragi coffee laddoos,” said Qtrove.com CEO Vinamra Pandiya.
Until last year, personalised gift items, sweet boxes and dry fruits were popular, but this year has seen high demand for greener gifts such as plants and seed boxes. Plants as a gifting option have surged.
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“We are shipping around 1,000 plants a day to corporates this season,” said Pawan Gadia, CEO, online and retail, Ferns N Petals. Healthians is giving health-check hampers of Rs 1,500, said CEO Deepak Sahni, rather than home decor gifts like last year.
There’s also a sharp rise in digital gifting cards driven by corporates and that’s likely to grow 50% this year, said TP Pratap, cofounder, Qwikcilver.
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The current size of the digital gifting card market in India is $2 billion.
Going Diwali Shopping? These Hampers Make For Great Gifts
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It’s that time of year again. Whether you’re looking for something fun or traditional, we bring you some of the best hampers you can gift colleagues, friends and family.
It’s that time of year again. Whether you’re looking for something fun or traditional, we bring you some of the best hampers you can gift colleagues, friends and family.
Provenance, the luxury gift boutique, has a hamper bar where you can add your own embellishments, custom ribbons, and leather tags, to build personalized, one-of-a-kind custom hampers for the Diwali season. Or you can pick up one of their readymade ones: and we recommend the Sweet Dreams in Japan hamper. Priced at Rs 2549, this is a great gift for someone who loves to travel thanks to the assortment of treats from across the world. The hamper contains: Royce’ chocolate bar, freshly ground coffee, cashew pralines, fig and walnut granola and more.
Provenance, the luxury gift boutique, has a hamper bar where you can add your own embellishments, custom ribbons, and leather tags, to build personalized, one-of-a-kind custom hampers for the Diwal..
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For these kinds of people, and everyone knows a bunch, it’s best to stick to something traditional that’s easy on the pocket.
Hoi Food has a range of mithais and cookies to choose from. They have got 8 pods in each box and this includes kaju katli, chocolate crust cookies, chocolate barfi, badam barfi and many more.
The best part, the price is Rs 150 onward.
For these kinds of people, and everyone knows a bunch, it’s best to stick to something traditional that’s easy on the pocket.
Hoi Food has a range of mithais and cookies to choose from. They hav..
Read More
Cherry-pick from attractive pre-made gifts or customise your packaging with your much-loved products from The Body Shop, courtesy the expert packaging from the stores.
The Body Shop is also doing their bit to encourage fair trade to benefit the communities alongside sales, not only banning animal testing from its procedures but also campaigning strongly against it to producing 100% vegetarian products.
Their hampers start at Rs 895 onward.
Cherry-pick from attractive pre-made gifts or customise your packaging with your much-loved products from The Body Shop, courtesy the expert packaging from the stores.
The Body Shop is also doin..
Read More
This hamper from The Sassy Teaspoon is ideal to gift a colleague – it’s personal but not over the top. The specially packaged Diwali gift hampers consists of goodies which are handpicked and handcrafted by the culinary team.
In the box you will find masala chai chocolate, white chocolate with cardamom & saffron ganache, milk chocolate ganache with almond praline as well as chocolate brownie chunks, roasted almond & pistachio cookies, chocolate coated dry fruits, shrewsbury biscuits, salted caramel jar and roasted almond brittle.
The hamper is priced at Rs 1500.
This hamper from The Sassy Teaspoon is ideal to gift a colleague – it’s personal but not over the top. The specially packaged Diwali gift hampers consists of goodies which are handpicked and handcr..
Companies have even begun giving gift cards from jewellery chains such as Tanishq and Kalyan Jewellers to staff from this year, Pratap said.
The economic slowdown hasn’t had an impact on the digital gifting market, said Suvodeep Das, vice president for sales and marketing at Sodexo BRS India.
He also said the company has clocked its highest-ever numbers from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in small towns this year. Arvind Prabhakar, CEO of GyFTR (Vouchagram), which clocked revenues of Rs 625 crore (2018-19), said he was observing a shift from traditional gifts to gifting from categories such as ecommerce and travel.
But not everyone is abandoning the old ways. For some companies like Ola, Vedanta Group and BankBazaar, conventional sweet boxes and dry fruits still do the trick.
