For most of this year, gift notes have been a two-horse race between love and kindness. That's starting to change. This week, the emotional range of gift messages widened noticeably, with comfort, playfulness, and pride all carving out larger shares of the conversation. Shoppers aren't just writing "happy birthday" and "I love you." They're showing up with humor, encouragement, and vulnerability.
The Emotional Palette Is Wider Than It Was a Month Ago
Kind, caring notes led the week at 38% of all gift messages, with notes full of love close behind at 35%. Those two still account for nearly three-quarters of all gifting sentiment. But look at the edges, and something is shifting.
Notes of comfort, the ones from shoppers showing up for someone going through it, doubled their share compared to the 30-day average, rising from 1% to 3% of all messages. Lighthearted, teasing notes tripled over the same period, also climbing to 3%. And families celebrating achievements grew their share to 2%, up from a thin sliver a month ago. None of these are massive numbers in isolation. Together, they tell a story: shoppers are reaching for a wider emotional vocabulary when they write gift notes.
In Italy, a family member sent a just-because gift with a note of unconditional support, telling the recipient they'd always be there. In Australia, a grandmother wrote a long, love-filled birthday note to her granddaughter turning 17. In Spain, extended family sent Easter chocolate to a young family they haven't seen in a while, with a note dripping in nostalgia. Each of these moments is different in tone, but they share the same instinct: say something real.
Care-First Gifting Is Strongest Where You Might Not Expect
The growth in comfort and encouragement isn't spread evenly around the world. In the Netherlands, the pattern is especially striking. Just-because gifts led Dutch gifting at 39%, and one in five Dutch gift messages was a get-well note. Another 11% were sympathy gifts. That means nearly a third of all gifting from the Netherlands this week was about care, not celebration.
Globally, notes of encouragement (friends and family cheering each other on) made up 3% of all messages, while shoppers saying thank you accounted for 6%. When you add in comfort and sympathy, roughly 15% of all gift notes this week were rooted in support rather than occasion. That's a meaningful slice. Family members wrote close to half of all gift messages this week, and many of those weren't tied to any holiday or milestone. They were just someone reaching out.
This lines up with what's been building over several weeks. New baby gifts have climbed for four consecutive weeks, rising from around 6% a month ago to 9% this week. The notes attached to those gifts lean heavily toward excitement and love, often from friends and colleagues rather than just immediate family. In France, nearly half of all gifting this week was for new parents.
What Merchants Should Take from This
With Easter landing this Sunday, seasonal gifting is in full swing. Holiday messages accounted for 16% of all notes this week, with 85% of those tied to Easter. But the bigger insight isn't about Easter. It's about the other 84% of gifting happening alongside it.
Shoppers are writing gift notes for reasons that don't show up on a marketing calendar: comfort for a friend, encouragement for a sibling, a playful jab between old college buddies. These moments don't need a promotional push. They need a store that makes it easy to add a personal message. Merchants who surface their gift message option clearly, especially on everyday products like books, chocolate, and jewelry (which together accounted for roughly a third of all product gifting this week), are meeting shoppers exactly where this emotional shift is headed.
This week in numbers
38% of gift notes carried kind, caring sentiment
53% of all gifts crossed a border
Nearly half of all messages came from family members
Notes of comfort doubled their share vs. the 30-day average
Playful, teasing notes tripled from baseline
