Media Release: Adult siblings receive the most expensive baby gifts

People spend more per person on group baby gifts for friends, relatives and siblings than if they bought them on their own.

In an online survey of 233 respondents, astrology gift website It's In The Stars at www.itsinthestarsonline.com found that people tend to spend far more on baby gifts for people close to them and will spend even greater amounts per person in a group gift than in a solo gift for adult siblings, cousins or friends whereas work colleagues were far more likely to spend less per person on group gifts.

"People want to give the best gifts they can afford to their own brothers and sisters and friends," said director of It's In The Stars, Elizabeth Ball.

"Surprisingly, they will spend even more on these people as their share of a group gift than if they'd bought it on their own," said Elizabeth.

Of those who bought a baby gift for a work colleague, 65.2% spent $50 or less each if they bought it on their own, but a whopping 83.5% spent $50 or less each if they went in on a group gift.

Of those who bought baby gifts for friends, 62.1% spent $50 or less as a solo gift while only 56.2% spent $50 or less each on a group gift. Gifts for cousins yielded similar results (62.6% vs 53.9%). A quarter (27.5%) spent $50 or less on solo gifts for adult siblings but not one respondent spent less than $50 for group gifts for their adult brothers and sisters.

The most popular baby gift items are clothing (82.9%), personalised baby items (46.6%), baby equipment (30.0%), luxury pampering items for parents (26.9%), books/CDs/DVDs (22.8%) and electronic items (12.5%).

"Clothing is always popular - because it's immediate and new mothers need so many of them - but personalised gifts were next most popular, usually because the recipient would think of the person who gave it to them," Elizabeth said.

"However, people tend to give personalised gifts to those they know well and give practical items to those they don't," she said.

While the gifts selected were bought in roughly equal proportion across all four recipient groups, of the gifts selected, adult siblings receive the highest proportion of personalised baby gifts (53.7%).

Cousins are the most likely to receive baby clothing (85.5%), luxury pampering products or services for the parents (37.1%) and baby equipment (32.9%), while work colleagues are the biggest recipients of books/CDs//DVDs (30.8%) and electronic items (15.8%).

Seven in ten (69.0%) knew three or more people who'd had a baby in the last 12 months. Of these people, 74.6% had given three or more gifts.

"Three in four people will buy a baby gift for a newborn but nine in ten people will also buy something for the eldest niece or nephew when the next child is born," Elizabeth said.

When asked if they'd buy a gift for the eldest so he or she didn't feel left out, 91.2% would be likely or very likely to buy one for their adult sister or brother's first child when the baby was born. However, only 67.3% would do so for the oldest child of their cousin, friends (69.5%) or work colleague (42.2%).

The top five reasons given for why they bought that particular gift were that it was unique and thoughtful (43.4%), they had asked for that product or service (32.2%), they wanted to surprise them (24.6%), they could keep it forever (21.0%) or they couldn't afford it (14.3%).

More country folk than metro-dwellers spent $50 or more on their siblings (80.0% vs 71.3%), and work colleagues (28.0% vs 12.0%) while more city-slickers than country respondents spent over $50 on their cousins (41.0%, 34.3%) and friends (39.5%, 35.3%).

Twenty-five percent of those from the city gave four or more baby gifts compared to 32.2% of the country folk.

While people from both city and country areas are almost equally likely to give clothing (city 82.3%, country 84.7%), luxury pampering for parents (26.8%, 27.1%), and electronic items (12.1%, 13.5%), more country respondents than city-slickers give personalised gifts (57.6% vs 42.6%) and baby equipment (35.5% vs 28.0%), while metropolitan people than country folk give books/CDs/DVDs (25.6% vs 15.2%).

It's In The Stars at www.itsinthestarsonline.com has been producing beautifully presented BabyStars astrology reports for parents to better understand their children since 2005.

Mum Zone Release Date: 1st July 2008

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