The Changing Corporate Gifting Landscape in India: Trends, Opportunities and Challenges

Corporate gifting is entering a different phase. The gift market used to focus on festivals, bulk orders, and standard gift sets. Now, it's shifting toward personalisation, relevance, and the overall experience a gift creates.

Corporate buyers are looking for gifting options that are useful to recipients, reflect their brand values, offer better presentation, and can be personalised without losing the convenience of managing them at scale. A 2025 Pluxee study of 430 professionals across industries points to this same shift. Cost and brand reputation still matter, but personalisation, sustainability, ease of distribution, and flexibility are now important too.

For corporate gifting companies, this creates a broader opportunity, but also a more demanding market. As expectations evolve, so do the products, experiences, and ways in which gifting programmes need to be planned and executed.

So, what does this shift mean for the businesses supplying corporate gifts in India?

India's corporate gifting market continues to grow, but the bigger change is in where and why businesses use gifting. Grassland Gifting estimates that the market exceeded ₹25,000 crore in 2025 and is growing at 12–14% annually. It also estimates that Diwali accounts for nearly 40% of annual corporate gifting volume.

Diwali remains a major business opportunity. But corporate gifting is no longer limited to festive campaigns. Businesses are using gifts across a wider range of employee and business touchpoints. These include:

• Employee onboarding and joining
• Work anniversaries and milestones
• Employee rewards and recognition
• Client and partner appreciation
• Conferences and corporate events
• Product and service launches
• Sales and channel incentives
• Business milestones and partnerships
• Other festive and cultural occasions

This creates a wider opportunity for corporate gifting companies. Instead of depending mainly on a few large festive orders, businesses can build recurring gifting programmes around different moments throughout the year.

The opportunity, therefore, is not simply to sell more gifts during peak seasons. It is to become a gifting partner that can support different occasions, audiences and business objectives throughout the year.

The biggest change in corporate gifting is not simply the type of products being offered. It is the expectation behind the gift.

A 2023 survey across 800 companies found that 73% of employees were dissatisfied with their Diwali gifts, according to The Financial Express. The report noted a clear move away from one-size-fits-all gifting towards more personalised and flexible options.

This shift reflects a simple change in how recipients view a corporate gift. A gift is more likely to make an impact when it is:

• Useful in everyday life
• Relevant to the recipient
• Well presented and thoughtfully curated
• Personalised where possible
• Aligned with the company's values

The change is already visible in the market. Businesses are exploring curated hampers, technology products, wellness items, sustainable gifts and personalised merchandise instead of relying only on standard festive hampers. The Financial Express also reported growing demand for utility-driven gifts, customised gifting and sustainable hampers.

For corporate gifting companies, this changes the opportunity. Competing only on the number of products or the price of a hamper is becoming less meaningful. The stronger opportunity is to create gifting experiences that feel relevant to the people receiving them.

In other words, the shift is from selling more gifts to creating better gifting experiences.

For corporate gifting companies, understanding what buyers value is as important as keeping up with new gift categories. The data suggests that buyers are balancing several factors at once. In Pluxee's 2025 study, cost-effectiveness ranked highest at 65%, followed by brand reputation at 57%. Ease of use, ease of distribution, personalisation and sustainability also featured strongly.

Personalisation Is Moving Beyond the Company Logo

Personalisation is no longer limited to adding a logo or company name to a product. Buyers are looking for ways to make gifts more relevant to the recipient.

This can include:

• Recipient names or personalised messages
• Curated gift choices
• Different gift options for different employee groups
• Custom packaging and inserts
• Gift sets designed around specific audiences

The opportunity for gifting companies is to offer personalisation without making the buying process difficult or expensive. This creates a stronger point of differentiation, but it also requires the ability to manage more variations at scale.

Utility Is Becoming Part of Perceived Value

A gift has greater value when the recipient has a reason to use it. Recent corporate gifting trends show growing interest in technology products, travel accessories, desk essentials, wellness products and other lifestyle-focused items. The Financial Express also reported a shift towards utility-driven gifts, with companies choosing products such as headphones, power banks, tech accessories, home appliances and travel products.

For gifting companies, this means product selection should focus on how the gift fits into the recipient's life, not just how attractive it looks in a catalogue.

Sustainability Is Becoming Part of the Gifting Proposition

Sustainability is also influencing corporate gifting decisions. Pluxee found that 34% of respondents considered sustainability when choosing gifts.

The shift goes beyond offering one eco-friendly product. It can influence the entire gifting proposition, including:

• Product materials
• Packaging
• Sourcing
• Branding
• Presentation

Grassland Gifting also identifies sustainability as a major structural shift in the Indian corporate gifting market, with growing attention to eco-conscious products and packaging.

For gifting companies, the challenge is to make sustainability part of the overall experience without compromising quality or presentation.

Premiumisation Is About Perceived Value, Not Just Price

Corporate buyers are also looking beyond low-cost, generic gifts.

Premiumisation does not always mean choosing the most expensive product. It can come from better curation, product quality, packaging, personalisation, and the overall experience.

For gifting companies, this creates an opportunity to compete on value per experience rather than price per unit.

Although festivals are still a big part of corporate gifting, they are no longer the only times that drive gifting demand. Gifting is being leveraged at more employee/business touchpoints and beyond the usual festive season.

For corporate gifting companies, these use cases can include:

The opportunity also extends to business partners, channel partners, and consumers. The Pluxee study found that external gifting is being used around business milestones, product launches, new partnerships, and structured campaigns, alongside major festivals.

This gives gifting companies more ways to build relationships with corporate clients throughout the year. Instead of depending mainly on a few large festive orders, they can develop ongoing programmes around onboarding, recognition, incentives, events, and business relationships.

The opportunity is not only to increase festive order volumes. It is to become a year-round corporate gifting partner.

More gifting opportunities also bring more operational complexity. As corporate gifting moves beyond traditional festive orders, gifting companies may need to manage more products, more variations, and tighter timelines.

A single corporate programme can involve several gift combinations, customised items, different packaging requirements, and deliveries to multiple locations. Managing this at scale requires more than simply having the right products available.

More SKUs and Product Combinations

A traditional gift may involve only a few products. A personalised programme can require multiple SKUs, gift combinations and recipient-specific variations. As the number of combinations grows, keeping inventory and orders organised becomes more challenging for gifting companies.

More Frequent and Varied Orders

Moving beyond festive campaigns can mean handling smaller gifting programmes throughout the year. Employee onboarding, recognition programmes, client milestones and events can each have different volumes and timelines.

Kitting and Customisation

Many corporate gifts are not ready to ship as individual products. Multiple items may need to be combined into a specific kit, along with customised inserts, branding or packaging. The more variations a programme has, the more important consistent execution becomes.

Inventory Planning

Gifting companies must have the right products and gifting packaging materials at the right time. When stock is not available, it can delay the campaign and affect the planned launch. On the other hand, keeping too much stock increases holding costs and may leave you with products that are no longer needed or relevant later.

Deliveries Across Multiple Locations

A corporate gifting programme may need to reach different offices, cities, or individual recipients. Managing these destinations adds another layer of coordination, especially when orders have different requirements.

Peak-Season Capacity

Gift opportunities are happening throughout the year, but there may be high demand at major festivals. Being able to accommodate these peaks in volume without compromising on service levels becomes crucial to scaling up a gifting business.

These challenges are already visible in the market. In Pluxee's study, 23% of organisations cited distribution issues, and another 23% cited management complexity among their corporate gifting challenges.

For gifting companies, the challenge is therefore not only finding products that buyers want. It is building an operation that can manage greater variety, personalisation and volume without losing control over cost, inventory or execution.

For a corporate gifting company, the experience does not end when the gift is designed or the order is confirmed. It also depends on what happens behind the scenes.

The right product needs to be available. The right combination needs to be packed. Personalised items need to reach the correct recipients. Orders need to be processed accurately and delivered within the promised timeline.

When any of these steps fail, the gifting experience can suffer. A beautifully designed gift loses its impact if the wrong item is packed, a personalised message is missed, inventory is unavailable, or delivery is late.

This is already a recognised challenge. As gifting programmes become more varied and personalised, fulfillment needs to keep pace. It has to support changing SKUs, kitting requirements, inventory availability, multiple destinations, and seasonal volume without compromising accuracy.

The front-end experience may be the gift, but the back end determines whether that experience can be delivered consistently at scale.

The changing market creates new opportunities, but it also raises the standard for gifting companies. Businesses that want to grow beyond seasonal campaigns will need to think about both the experience they offer and their ability to deliver it consistently.

Build Year-Round Corporate Relationships

Festive campaigns will remain important, but gifting companies can create more consistent business by supporting external gifting demands.

The goal is to become a regular gifting partner rather than a vendor businesses approach only during the festive season.

Develop More Differentiated Gifting Experiences

A wider product catalogue alone may not be enough to stand out. Personalisation, curation, utility and presentation can help gifting companies create experiences that are more relevant to different audiences and occasions.

Expand Sustainable Options

Sustainability is becoming part of corporate gifting decisions. Gifting companies can look beyond individual eco-friendly products and consider sustainable materials, packaging and sourcing across the overall gifting experience.

Prepare for Greater SKU Complexity

More personalisation and curated gifting can mean more products, combinations and variations. Strong inventory and order management become important to maintain accuracy as this complexity grows.

Build Fulfillment Capabilities That Can Scale

As order volumes, destinations and customisation requirements increase, fulfillment can become an operational bottleneck. Gifting companies need the capacity to manage inventory, kitting, packing and dispatch efficiently during both regular programmes and peak seasons.

For gifting businesses, the next phase is not only about finding the next popular gift. It is about building the products, relationships and operational capabilities needed to deliver better gifting experiences at scale.

For gifting companies, winning more corporate programmes also means being ready to manage what happens after the order is confirmed. More product combinations, customised kits, last-minute requirements and deliveries across multiple locations can put pressure on inventory and order execution. This is where the right 3PL company can help businesses scale without adding the same complexity to their own operations.

AAJ Supply Chain Management helps gifting businesses manage their warehousing and fulfillment operations, including inventory storage, order processing, kitting, packing, and dispatch. This allows gifting companies to focus on creating better products and experiences while having the operational capacity to fulfil them at scale.

Ready to build a more scalable fulfilment operation? Explore Fulfilment Services