It's the day after Christmas ... so what do you do with all those unwanted gifts?
Christmas is a time for giving, a time for showering your loved ones with carefully picked gifts to show them just how much they mean to you. But while you might put your all into painstakingly choosing a well-intended gift, the truth is that they don't always hit the right spot.
New research carried out for the charity Send a Cow by YouGov found that almost 60 million Christmas presents will be exchanged this year with 57 per cent of those questioned receiving at least one undesirable gift every year.
While a recent poll by VoucherCodes.co.uk established that we'll spend almost £1 billion on the wrong presents in the UK alone.
So what do we do with them? We try to exchange them for money, of course. New research by eBay predicts the site will see a sharp rise in new listings on December 28th - AKA Boxing Up Day - with a staggering 74 million items being listed following Christmas.
Katharina Klausberger, co-founder of boot sale app Shpock, said: "After the gift giving, we face a tremendous rush of users. Many people put their unwanted gifts – lots of them in original packaging – right after Christmas up for sale on Shpock."
And it's not just new prezzies that we look to shift. Shpock estimates that previously in demand models such as the iPhone 6S, the Samsung Galaxy 6S, first generation smart watches, and the PlayStation 4, will be put up for sale during the Christmas holidays, as people unwrap newer models.
Enthuse about the gift, even if it's rubbish. It's better than burning bridges
William Hanson
And although over 70 per cent of us will receive a gift we'll never use, it seems we're pretty good at faking our gratitude. VoucherCodes.co.uk's survey of 2000 people found that around half of us believe we're good at hiding our disappointment when opening a present we don't like and a quarter have returned a bad gift without the giver ever knowing.
William Hanson, an etiquette expert, says that while it may be awkward it's perfectly acceptable to ask for the receipt, but only if you want to change the size or for some other legitimate reason. If you have any other reason for wanting to return to gift, keep quiet or only ask if the giver is an extremely tolerant person: "Enthuse about the gift, even if it's rubbish. It's better than burning bridges."
If your gift truly so bad you can't bear to keep it and you can't bring yourself to ask for the receipt, here are some easy way for you get rid of it with your gift giver being none the wiser.
Re-sell them and pocket the £££
When faced with a cupboard full of well-meant but ultimately useless gifts that you know you'll never touch again, re-selling them to make a quick buck is likely to be the first thought that pops into your head.
“The period between Christmas and the New Year is an incredibly busy listings period on the site," says Nikin Patel, Director of Consumer-to-Consumer selling at eBay. "And Boxing Up Day is prime time to list those unwanted items and make some extra cash, whether it’s to put toward that next family holiday or home upgrade.”
Based on best sellers from last year between 26th December 2017 – 19th January 2018 , eBay.co.uk has pinpointed the top ten categories that Brits are purchasing on site during this period:
Home Appliances
Video Games Consoles
Mobile Smart Phones
Shoes
Laptop and Netbooks
Video Games
Games
DVDs and Blu-Rays
Fragrance and Aftershave
DVD Player and Home Cinema
If you'd rather not do battle with the other hundreds and thousands of sellers trying to unload their supermarket bath sets and albums from artists they'd never even consider listening to, there are platforms other than eBay you could turn to.
For books, sites like Fat Brain and We Buy Books are a good place to start. Simply enter the ISBN numbers of the books you wish to sell to get a quote and then send them off.
If you get any unwanted games this year (or games that aren't compatible with your console), sell them on sites like CEX and GameXChange. Enter the barcode of the game to get a quote and then post the games to receive your payment.
Sell any unwanted clothes on Depop, an online marketplace targeted specifically at millennials, or if you were lucky enough to receive designer or high end labels then you can sell them on Cudoni.
For anything else, there's always Amazon or Gumtree.
Give them to charity
Just because you don't particularly like your gift, it doesn't mean someone else won't. Plenty of charities accept donations throughout the year, especially over the Christmas period, in particular children's charities.
If you're thinking about spreading the goodwill, here are some gifts that charities like Great Ormond Street Hospital are likely to accept:
board games (for example Connect 4 and Frustration)
computer games (Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, Xbox)
arts and crafts (for example paints and Playdough)
modelling kits
jigsaws
Due to concerns over infections and limited storage space, they can't accept gifts such as:
used toys
over-sized soft toys
large mechanical or motorised toys
used clothing
second-hand books
used magazines
Turn them into something else
Not the easiest task for, say, an unwanted iPhone 6S (any unwanted iPhone's, feel free to send our way...), but smaller gifts like ugly mugs you wouldn't dream of putting in your kitchen cupboard could be repurposed into something great.
Turn them into chic, hipster plant pots for your work area or even containers for berries in the kitchen. Ugly socks? They're now puppets for your young children to play with.
Get creative with your terrible gifts this year.
Keep them
We know. The last thing you want to do is to acquire more clutter around the house in the form of unwanted gifts. But think about the future.
That tacky aftershave you got from a long last aunt? Those hideous granny panties not even Bridget Jones would touch? That cringeworthy novelty jumper with a crude message splashed across the front? All perfectly acceptable stocking fillers and Secret Santa gifts for next Christmas.
Just make sure not to give it back to the person who gifted it to you in the first place ...
