Msweaters destined to felt in the closet and household items that will end up parked in a garage. Romance books for those who love detective stories, and vice versa. Every Christmas, gifts are piled up under the tree that, for the most part, you won’t like. According to Ipsos research Doxa for eBay 44% of Italians have received at least one unwanted gift at Christmas. In terms of volumes, it means that more or less 30 million objects were produced to be wasted. Unless they are put back into circulation.
There are 30 million unwanted gifts a year: mostly friends and partners make mistakes
Among the data that emerged from the research, it is surprising the identikit of those who make the most mistakes. They are not uncles, cousins or colleagues but friends (24%) and partners (21%). This is followed by mothers and siblings (17%). Uncles (12%), colleagues (9%) and cousins (7%) they are less likely to make mistakes because they give generic gifts, reducing the possibility of making sensational blunders. Which instead almost always happens to those who dare, with a gift that aims to strike the recipient’s heart. And instead he misses his aim.
Knowing how widespread this scene is can free one’s conscience: there is nothing strange if you find an unwanted gift in your hands. Nothing wrong if you choose to re-gift or resell it. Regifting or reselling, i.e. the recycling or reselling of unwanted gifts, are increasingly widespread practices, and less and less viewed with suspicion. As Margot Olifson, country manager of eBay in Italy, explains, what «was once considered a makeshift gesture, today tells of something bigger: the desire to give new value to what we don’t use, in an intelligent and responsible way». “Only” a third of Italians judge the gesture to be disrespectful towards the person who gave the gift.
It always happens that you receive an unwanted gift, but today reselling it is no longer a taboo (Getty Images)
The solutions: regifting and reselling (better than waste)
In 2025, 20% of Italians have resold at least one gift received, up from 15% the previous year. Naturally there are those who keep it (39%), without knowing exactly what to do with it. 22% recycle it, 17% forget it in a drawer.
At the top of the list of most resold gifts are clothes, shoes and accessories (44%), followed by household items (33%). At a distance appear books and comics (18%), jewelery and watches (17%) and electronics (14%).
Why Christmas gifts are resold and where
The reasons for reselling are quite obvious: 37% do it because the gift doesn’t reflect their tastes, 28% because they already own a similar item and 27% because they don’t want to keep it. For 12%, regifting represents an opportunity for extra income while 9% choose to resell because they consider the object too precious to remain unused. The increase in the cost of living also weighs heavily: over four out of ten Italians resell to earn a few euros.
Those who do “regifting”, explains the Ipsos Doxa survey, do so 76% on digital platforms, with an increase of 15 percentage points compared to the previous year. Second-hand shops and chains are chosen today by only 19% of people (compared to 30% in 2024).
What is gained from regifting is usually saved: it is the choice of 55% of those interviewed, up compared to 51% in 2024. 34% use the money to buy something more similar to their tastes, while the share of those who use it to cover Christmas expenses drops sharply, going from 27% to 18% in one year.