Present Identities Via Wedding Gift Registries

Wedding gift registries are a nuptial ritual. Recognizing this, researchers at University of Notre Dame studied how retailers use these gift registries to increase pleasure for family and friends deciding which items to purchase.
     The researchers concluded the best pleasure comes when the retailer uses the process to help people shape their desired identities. Grandma might feel best selecting a wedding gift which verifies her role as the family historian. The fiancée’s older sister scans the list to find a kitchen appliance in order to subliminally say she’ll always have the younger sister’s back. Aunt Ellen picks an expensive silver set so she’ll be seen as wealthy. However, Uncle Fred, who happens to be tagging along, says he’s willing to have them spend big on the gift, but insists they buy something at the store which isn’t on the list. Uncle Fred wants to support his independent thinker self-image.
     When a wedding couple opens a gift registry with your store, encourage the couple to include a broad range of items. Your objective is to allow different family members and friends to affirm different sorts of identities. 
     The value of doing this transcends wedding gift giving. Researchers at Southern Methodist University and University of Texas-Austin watched what happened when people from UT were assigned to purchase a present for someone who wanted an item carrying the logo of UT archrival Texas A&M. The reactions were compared to those of a comparable group assigned to buy a gift emblazoned with the UT Longhorns logo.
     If selecting the item for the Texas A&M fan, the shoppers fidgeted, chewed on their lips, and averted their eyes. They crossed their arms, as if to distance themselves from what they were doing, and at the cash/wrap, they actually stepped away from the item, as if to say to anybody watching, “Don’t think this item represents who I really am.”
     The Notre Dame researchers contend that gift-givers’ desires for retailers to help clarify identities is greater with wedding registries than with gift lists for other occasions. The researcher’s reasoning is that marriages form new family ties, requiring establishment and revision of roles.
     This makes sense. Still, there are additional occasions in which the roles played by family and friends are prime for revision. Consider that about three years ago, Debenhams, with its 153 department stores located across the UK and Ireland, launched a divorce gift registry.

Click below for more: 
Sell Identify Affirmation to People 
Meet Needs of Divorce Market