The reputation of “giving gifts” started off strong but ended up declining. Will it become a “holiday limited” feature of WeChat?

Since the grayscale test of WeChat's "Send Gifts" function on Christmas Day 2024, it has quickly attracted users' attention and market expectations with its new model of integrating social and e-commerce. However, as the holiday enthusiasm faded, the reputation of this function started high and ended low. This article analyzes the performance of the "Send Gifts" function on platforms such as WeChat and Taobao in holiday marketing, explores its limitations in daily use, and the after-sales problems faced by merchants and users.

For Internet companies eager to test the new business of "giving gifts", every festival is their battlefield - from Christmas to New Year and Spring Festival in 2024, followed by Valentine's Day on February 14, and then probably Women's Day on March 8. ‍‍‍‍

Before Valentine's Day, Taobao specially launched a "Valentine's Day Gift Shopping Guide", which included sales lists such as "Gifts for Girlfriends" and "Gifts for Boyfriends" for users' reference; some merchants in WeChat stores also added prefixes such as "Valentine's Day Gifts" to the product names to increase traffic into the store.

From WeChat's grayscale testing of the "send gifts" function on Christmas Eve last year to multiple platforms following suit before the Spring Festival of the Year of the Snake, the combination of social and e-commerce attributes has led to a lot of expectations for "send gifts". For WeChat, which hopes to "build an e-commerce ecosystem in a systematic way", it can relatively smoothly bring WeChat stores and their products into social scenarios to help them achieve promotion; for e-commerce platforms represented by Taobao, this is not only an experience enhancement beyond "I have what others have", but also a marketing method of "new wine in old bottles".

However, the merchants and users involved may have different views. A food merchant operating on multiple platforms told the power plant that gift giving is not a daily, high-frequency demand, "it still depends on the festival." Since late January, most of the shops of his peers have received "gift giving" orders, but the effect on increasing overall sales is limited. Even for merchants whose products have strong gift attributes, "the number of orders is not large."

Whether it is Taobao or WeChat, the rule that the recipient fills in the address means that the surprise is already discounted in advance. What's more, after-sales service is a bigger potential stumbling block - if there is a quality problem with the product, only the recipient can apply for a refund. An 88VIP user is worried about this. It is embarrassing enough to ask a friend to return the product, and what's even worse is that "he has to bear the return shipping fee." Another user who placed an order through the "Send Gifts" function of WeChat Store found that the product she purchased was shipped by a Pinduoduo merchant, and the actual price shown in the shipping reminder text message was a quarter of the price she paid.

1. “Giving gifts” revolves around festivals

The current wave of "sending gifts" began in mid-December 2024. At that time, the WeChat Store operation team issued an announcement to conduct a grayscale test on the "sending gifts" function. Users who were grayed out could see the "send to a friend" logo on the product page of the WeChat Store and click to experience it.

This is a slightly delicate node. Christmas, New Year, Spring Festival and other festivals are approaching, and some users do have the need to send gifts. In addition, the corresponding blue message cards are similar to WeChat red envelopes. This function, which is jokingly called "WeChat blue envelopes", has become a social expression method that is both fresh and practical. Subsequently, Taobao, JD.com and other platforms have launched their own "send gifts" functions to use the power of festivals for marketing.

After small-scale verification, it was promoted on a large scale. On the eve of the Spring Festival of the Year of the Snake, WeChat moved the "Send Gifts" entry to the toolbar of the chat page, between "Red Envelope" and "Transfer", and added "Group Gifts" and "Gifts Lottery" functions - it is very necessary to use it in group chat scenarios. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Ma Huateng, Zhang Xiaolong and other senior executives personally supported it and gave employees lotion gift boxes, coffee candies, slippers, etc. in the form of "gift lottery" to show their love.

The Spring Festival data released by WeChat shows that snacks, candies/chocolate, plush/fabric products are popular choices for users to give as gifts. Tencent Marketing Insights disclosed relevant data of some brands in the "Panorama Report on Spring Festival Gifts": Three Squirrels' total gift sales during the Spring Festival exceeded 10 million yuan; the total GMV of Telunsu's WeChat store on New Year's Eve increased 20 times month-on-month; Luckin Coffee's average daily sales of gift sets during the Spring Festival reached 80,000 pieces. In addition, the number of gift orders for multiple book categories increased by more than 10,000% month-on-month, involving classic works, cultural theories, parenting encyclopedias, and application guides.

Not long after the white tea brand Pinpinxiang entered the WeChat Store, the store was labeled "New Store Opening". Pinpinxiang told the power plant that by connecting to the "Send Gifts" function of the WeChat Store and its own series of operational measures during the New Year Festival, it has achieved a certain sales growth. As for the next effect, with the gradual update and improvement of the background, "further testing and exploration are still needed at subsequent nodes."

Pinpinxiang's Taobao store has also opened the "send gifts" function and received some gift orders. Unlike WeChat stores, as a predecessor of e-commerce platforms, Taobao has a more sufficient supply of goods, and the combination of "send gifts" and e-commerce attributes is also closer. During the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Snake, Taobao gave away goods worth 10 million yuan in the form of a 1-cent gift grab; around the Lantern Festival, the "guess lantern riddles" activity attracted many users to participate.

To some extent, game interaction is one of the means to deepen users' understanding of the "gift sending" function. The goods are provided by the merchants, which omits the "sending" part of "gift sending" for users, and only requires "receiving". While the process is simplified, the merchants still achieve the purpose of using the platform for promotion. Taobao also wrote in the "Gift Sending" Function User Manual: "The gift sending function can provide a new sales channel. Merchants can use this function to promote products, attract users to buy, and help you improve the conversion rate of goods."

However, if we do not consider special occasions such as festivals, how much is the daily demand for "giving gifts"? A book merchant revealed that in January 2025, the proportion of gift orders in his Taobao store in the total number of orders was extremely small, and the overall increase was limited. The WeChat index trend of the keyword "giving gifts" can also be used as a reference. The peak in the past 30 days appeared on January 26, and then stabilized after a sharp drop.

A food merchant operating on multiple platforms believes that the "gifting" function is more suitable for merchants specializing in the gift market, and the growth of other categories "will not be very large" because "there are not many daily gift-givings." At the same time, it is difficult to prepare targeted stocks, profits are not stable enough, and it is difficult to focus on investing energy.

The merchant mentioned that he is in a wait-and-see stage for the "gift sending" function on various platforms this year, and plans to try it out during the Spring Festival next year and prepare the corresponding products in advance. As for other festivals besides the Spring Festival, "no plans are made." Of course, the premise is that this function will still exist next year, rather than being a temporary trend and then returning to normal.

2. After-sales service becomes a "big problem"

Although the platform has disguised it as "giving gifts", from the perspective of merchants and users, this is still a process of selling and purchasing goods. What is important is performance, product quality, and shopping experience.

A tableware merchant said that his Taobao store did not actively enable the "send gifts" function, but received gift orders from users. One of the orders never displayed the address and shipping entrance, and "finally refunded it." However, the merchant said that as long as orders can be placed and no additional losses are caused to the store, similar functions will not be closed.

The power plant learned that the coupons on WeChat Stores are currently giving merchants a profit. In addition to the rights and interests of new merchants such as 0 deposit trial operation, technical service fee reduction, and traffic coupons, a digital merchant said that WeChat Stores "do not provide any subsidies or support" to merchants, and the operation level does not attach importance to it, but allows it to develop naturally. "Maybe the 'send gifts' function is just a small internal innovation and is not so strategic."

The discounts for Taobao's "Send Gifts" feature also come from merchants' input. When a store participates in the platform's full-discount promotion, the discount displayed on the product page changes with the full-discount rules. Taobao's full-discount rule during the Valentine's Day promotion is "40 off for purchases over 300", which is equivalent to a discount of about 17%. The previous "30 off for purchases over 200" and "20 off for purchases over 200" correspond to 15% and 10% discounts respectively.

"During the New Year Goods Festival, in conjunction with the platform's unified promotional activities, the price of goods in our Taobao store's 'gift' is equivalent to an immediate 15% discount." Pinpinxiang told the power plant that the "gift" discount has been cancelled. "Our brand is mainly considering the issue of national price unification. If this factor is excluded, the discount is still acceptable."

In other words, whether users place orders through the "send gifts" function launched by WeChat or Taobao, there is no additional price discount. Therefore, the impact of shopping experience on subsequent use is particularly important.

On social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, you can see many users complaining about the "send gifts" function. The phenomenon of merchants in WeChat stores "running away" without shipping, as well as the return and exchange issues of Taobao gift orders, have occupied a lot of space.

A user who placed an order through the "Send Gifts" function on WeChat Store said that after the latest delivery time on the product page, the product she bought for her friend was still not shipped. When she asked the merchant's customer service, "there was not even a reply." In the end, she had to ask her friend to apply for a refund. Later, she learned that other users had received products that were not as advertised, and even had to contact WeChat Store customer service to intervene after the order was delayed. "I am really impressed. Which e-commerce platform has ever treated me like this?"

This question may be answered by an 88VIP user who was tortured by the after-sales service of Taobao gift orders. Since gift orders do not support the 88VIP return shipping rights, when the user needs to return the goods given to his friends, in addition to applying for a return, the user's friends must also pay the return shipping fee. For both the gift recipient and the gift giver, this result is very different from the original intention of giving gifts and receiving surprises.

In this context, in order to eliminate potential after-sales risks, the only products suitable for ordering through the "Send Gift" function are probably standard products from brand stores that will never be returned or exchanged.

In the view of the aforementioned tableware merchants, the "gift sending" function is strongly tied to holiday scenes. If it cannot create greater benefits for users, the effect achieved will be limited, and we can only look at the next optimization actions. As for platforms such as WeChat and Taobao, the first thing to do should be to figure out who the long-term audience of this function is, and what necessary service guarantees it should have when it exists as a lightweight marketing tool. After all, helping merchants to narrow the distance between themselves and users and expand the traffic pool is a long-term task. Taobao wants to "return to users" and WeChat wants to "build a larger, more meaningful, and higher-ceiling e-commerce ecosystem." It's easy to leave a bad impression, but it's hard to reverse it.

Reporter He Chang Editor Gao Yulei