The busiest gift-givers this week were not partners or colleagues. They were relatives. Parents posted birthday parcels to grown children, grandchildren sent thoughtful gifts back the other way, and siblings arrived for anniversary couples with something for the house.

Family members were behind 40% of all gifting this week, ahead of friends, partners and coworkers. Birthday gifting was the reason for most of those parcels, and notes full of love and kind, caring notes ran side by side across the week.

Four in ten gifts this week came from someone in the family.

New baby gifts kept the softest corner

New baby gifts made up 11% of American gifting, and the most charming pattern in them was who they were really for. Plenty were aimed at the parents rather than the baby: friends sending dinner out, a night off, a small window of rest.

Plush bears, knitted booties and pale boxes carried the rest. It is a category where the product matters less than the timing, because the gift arrives in a week when nobody has the energy to shop for themselves.

Australia spent the week on dad

Father's Day lands in Australia and New Zealand on September 6, and Australian shoppers did not wait for the weekend. Seasonal gifting reached 19% of Australian gifting, second only to birthdays, moving coffee mugs, leather watch straps and wine out the door all week.

Britain, meanwhile, kept its usual single-minded focus: seven in ten gifts there were for a birthday. Two English-speaking markets, two completely different weeks, and both of them worth planning for separately.

What this means for merchants

Family gifting rewards stores that make the message easy. A grandparent buying a bracelet and a friend buying a plush bear both want to say something, and a note field beside the product is the difference between a purchase and a gift.

The occasion calendar is regional, so gifting options should stay switched on year-round rather than seasonally. Birthdays never stop, just-because gifts held a quarter of the week, and Mid-Autumn Festival is three weeks out for shoppers in China, South Korea and across East Asia.

This week in gifting

40% of gifting came from family members 39% of gifts were for birthdays 11% of American gifting was for new babies 19% of Australian gifting was seasonal 25% of gifts had no occasion attached 55% of gifting crossed a border