To stop doing an amazon wishlist?

[jamhot]

NC due to many identifiable gift details.

Each year, family members ask me and DP for our Christmas wishlist. In past years we've ended up with duplicate items as people don't mark things off as purchased (DP got 3 cafetieres one year, and it still wasn't bloody marked off as purchased!) so we stopped handing it out.

The more technically proficient members of the family have still been finding and using them, and we haven't discouraged this. Until now.

I put "socks" on my list for this year. I put them on as many of DPs family have little cash, so I try to put on lots of affordable items.

My mum popped in this weekend, and gave me an "urgent early Christmas present". She has bought me 27 pairs of socks. She seems to think I needed lots of pairs, and urgently. Neither is true. I can only assume she got this idea from the amazon wishlist. I have not mentioned socks to her.

AIBU to stop doing a wishlist? I know family will complain but we keep ending up in silly situations because of it.

[cantgonofurther]

The problem is that Amazon may not be the cheapest. People may not be buying the items from Amazon if they see a better deal elsewhere.

[SoupDragon]

Who can ever need 27 pairs of socks at once?! :o

I think you need to consider how bad things might be if you didn't have a wish list...

[jamhot]

It wasn't all amazon items. Most of them (like "socks") are just gift ideas, which they can still mark off as bought. I very much am on board with people looking for a good deal

[Tuiles]

There was life before Amazon. People coped ...

[jamhot]

Soup that's a good point. At least atm we are getting poor interpretations of gifts we do want. Free reign? shudder

[specialsubject]

if ever there was a case for a present cease-fire, this is it. Sounds like an exchange of useless crap that some people can't afford.

and Amazon are now very expensive.

[Senpai]

Me and DH have the same problem. My family doesn't mark it as purchased because "then we can peak at what we got early". We always get duplicate gifts and it's a bit of a bartering game on who gets to give it and who has to send it back for something else.

[Pooseyfrumpture]

Senpai There is an option where you as the owner of the list can mark purchases as a surprise - so you can't peak.

And you as the present giver can mark something as bought elsewhere.

It's just pure incompetence. All round, really

[PaulAnkaTheDog]

I hate amazon wish lists. Next thing we know children won't be writing lists to Santa, just logging on Amazon and clicking a ton of stuff.

[YellowDinosaur]

We do this. We just tell our relatives to talk to each other so they don't buy the same things! You could do different lists for both sides of the family if this would make things easier.

You can make your lists private if you don't want them looking of their own accord. I do this as most of my lists are just ideas not things I definitely want. I then transfer a couple of things onto a public list if anyone asks for ideas.

[LurkingOne]

Can't, you can use the Amazon wishlist to point people to other sites, so if you find some trainers for example cheaper on Nike, it is possible to set up Amazon wishlist to link to the Nike website (you need to download a toolbar extension, not too difficult but not straightforward either).

Amazon don't make any money from that but they do gain a lot of product and pricing knowledge from it.

OP I'm with you. My father drives me mad. He does all his shopping on Amazon but can't grasp the wishlist concept. He adds things to his own wishlist that he thinks other people will want as gifts and then looks dumbfounded on Xmas day when other people have bought him things he had in mind as gifts for others.

I "get" that people don't want to use wishlists to maintain the surprise and I don't do them for the DC, but at my stage in life ive got a lot of stuff and chances are I either don't want it or already have it, wishlist makes life easier!

[LurkingOne]

Paul, I agree with you in terms of the children and frankly I wouldn't care if i didn't get gifts from family. But if they are going to get me a book or a DVD it is nicer to get something I'm actaually going to watch or read.

SIL insists on getting me a book that she thinks I would like and I would proabably appreciate that in a few years when I have the time to read a book I may or may not enjoy. But the right now time is of a premium and those books just don't get touched, I barely have the time to read books I'm desperate to read.

I think what I'm trying to say is if you are a "hard to buy for" person like me then wishlists are a necessary evil.

[SnozBuriedUnderThePatio]

OP are you a caterpillar with broken central heating because I can't think why else anyone would need 27 pairs of socks urgently. Can you just mention ideas when they ask for the wishlist? So when aunt X says what do you want you say oh maybe a book. And when uncle Y asks you say oh maybe a chest of drawers for all my new socks. Y'know the old fashioned way

[Bohemond]

I can't imagine why adults need Christmas lists - surely they are just for nippers.

[PaulAnkaTheDog]

I guess I just feel it takes some of the fun out of Christmas. 'Buy me stuff only from here, this is all I want'. It feels grabby.

[lifesalongsong]

I agree with Bohemond - why would grown adults be making lists, if you need socks just buy them.

[YellowDinosaur]

Bohemond I think in this situation adults needs wishlists because (direct quote from the op):

Each year, family members ask me and DP for our Christmas wishlist

Or was that not clear?

[PaulAnkaTheDog]

Before anyone says anything, my post wasn't directed at op, she said her family specifically ask for giftlists, I'm assuming that's why she started one. I mean it about people like my sister who makes everyone look at her list (that has nothing under £35) on it. She even asked me to take my iPad to our grans (who doesn't use the internet) so I could order something from it from her.

[MajesticWhine]

Lists don't seem to work well for me either. I wanted Marc Jacobs dot last year and I got two bottles of it. (DM and DMIL). I also got two teapots along with speciality tea. Now, I like a cup of tea as much as the next person, but I'm really more into coffee. I didn't ask for teapots. I asked for a new dressing gown - I still have no dressing gown. Maybe this year?

[GruntledOne]

So when aunt X says what do you want you say oh maybe a book

With 129 million published books out there, somehow I don't think Aunt X is going to find that very helpful.

[SnozBuriedUnderThePatio]

I'm sure OP could be more specific if she wanted. My suggestion was more about saying what you want rather than saying here's my wishlist.

[LurkingOne]

I get the grabby comment if someone is putting a 35 min on it.

But I do disagree that wishlists aren't appropriate for adults. Yes if I want socks I go out and buy them, but for things like books where the range is so huge and where I already have a lot of books on my areas of interest, it helps to narrow the field for family.

I wouldn't dream of sending an email to my full address book pointing them to my wishlist. This is for mum, dad, mil, FIL who want to get me something is like but wouldn't know where to start.

[cardibach]

LurkingOne I'm with your dad. My father drives me mad. He does all his shopping on Amazon but can't grasp the wishlist concept. He adds things to his own wishlist that he thinks other people will want as gifts and then looks dumbfounded on Xmas day when other people have bought him things he had in mind as gifts for others
My Amazon wish list is for me to remember things I want to buy, whether for myself or other people so that I can find them again. It would never occur to me that people might look at it or think I was suggesting things for them to buy me! That seems grabby (although I recognise that in the OPs case the family asked for it. Just trying to explain Lurkg's dad's train of thought).

[LurkingOne]

Yes, but he has the ability to have a private wishlist for that sort ofnthing just as I do.

He sends me the link to his public wishlist from which to find presents which includes numerous things that he's put on for other people.

That's kind of why the wishlists are public or private.

So, it's been explained to him, he just won't grasp it.

[SoupDragon]

I don't understand the angst over wish lists. I'd rather spend my money buying a gift I knowslmeone will love and appreciat rather than something I think they might like but will actually just be re-gifted.

I will be donating a large proportion of the gifts I got last year to this year's school fair. Whilst I fully appreciate the sentiment behind giving them and am grateful for any gift, they aren't to my taste and are better off being used by someone else.