Why More People Are Sending Gifts From Their Phone
Gift Ideas
Digital Gift Cards
If you have noticed that more of the gifts you receive arrive on your phone these days, you are not imagining it. Something has shifted in how people give.
Digital gift cards have quietly become one of the fastest-growing categories in gifting. Not because they are impersonal. Because the best ones are actually more personal, more reliable, and more useful than most physical alternatives.
The convenience question is settled
The clearest signal came last Christmas. 80% of people who bought a gift card on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day chose digital. Not because they had given up on finding a good gift. Because sending a thoughtful gift card to someone's phone, with a personal message, in about a minute, was genuinely the better option.
No postage risk. No wrong sizes. No driving across town. And the recipient gets it exactly when you want them to.
This is not only a last-minute story. Digital gift cards are also the strongest option when you are sending across cities or countries, when you want the notification to land on a birthday morning, or when you simply want to be sure it arrives.
People are choosing gift cards on purpose, not as a fallback
There is an older perception that gift cards are what you buy when you cannot think of anything else. The data says otherwise.
The average gift card value received during the 2025 holidays was $236, up 47% from two years earlier. People are putting more on each card, not less. That is not fallback behaviour. That is intentional gifting.
And 71% of Gen Z and millennial shoppers chose gift cards over physical gifts during the last holiday season. For the generations who will shape gifting for decades, digital and flexible is not a compromise. It is the preference.
It is not just a Christmas thing
On average, people buy nine gift cards a year for occasions beyond the holidays. Thank yous, birthdays, Valentine's Day, congratulations, and many other moments throughout the year.
Gift cards have actually been the most requested gift every year since 2007. Nearly two decades of people saying the same thing: just let me choose.
For anyone who has ever agonised over what to buy someone, that should feel like permission. The person you are shopping for would probably rather pick something they love from a business they already enjoy than open something you spent three stressful hours choosing.
How to pick the right one
The digital gift cards that get redeemed and remembered are the specific ones. Not a card to a generic national chain. A card to a business the recipient already loves, or one you think they would love if they tried it.
Their favourite cafe. A bookshop near their office. A restaurant you have been meaning to take them to. A salon they would never book for themselves.
Add a personal message. Pick a delivery time that feels right. That combination of specific, personal, and well-timed is what turns a gift card into a genuinely good gift.
Okuru lets you send a digital gift card to thousands of small businesses, in about a minute. Available on the App Store and Google Play.
