Gift buying etiquette

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Do you buy presents specifically for the giftee or do you stock up on things you see and like / bargains in the sale and then search your stash when it's someone's birthday ?

I have a couple of friends and MIL an online yo stash and then the kids especially will get random gifts which sometimes are not age appropriate or at all in their interests.

I always try and find a gift I think the person will like (and sometimes you can still get this wrong) with the exception of school party gifts which I try and stock up when offers are on. Best friends we buy for specifically but everyone else my kids choose something to wrap from the stash.

Yesterday MIL found a young kids toy she had stashed for one of the older kids and forgotten about. TBF it was something one of my older kids would have liked and she thinks it was for him. She blew all the dust off it and announced she would keep it for my youngest DS for Christmas. I know it's a gift and she can do what she wants but 1. What if DS isn't intrested in Dinosaurs and 2. We have lots of very similar toys already from DS2.

MIL is very generous but she also isn't consistent she will sometimes buy one of the grandkids a slide costing over £100 for their birthday and then buy another a book or a water bottle. I have set budgets in my head for my kids, nieces and nephews etc and try and keep it consistent with what I buy but I don't think people other than my mum do that ?

Ok I am sure I will get lots of people should be grateful they get gifts no one needs to buy you gifts but just wondering if other people buy for the person or stock up and if you keep consistent with what you spend.

Yes I think she should try to keep budgets the same for all the grandchildren. I'd be pretty annoyed if one gc got a very expensive gift and mine got something cheap. It smacks of favouritism.

I buy gifts for specific adults and specific children. I have noticed mil stocks up gifts but they tend to be for distant family or people she doesn’t know that well (who I wouldn’t have bothered giving a gift to) so a gift set she’s picked up a couple of months before could easily be what she would have picked up specifically for that person.

My Mil does this. I don’t like it because the cheapness of the present is clearly the most important thing to her: things aren’t really selected based on how much the recipient will like it, just on how big of a bargain it is.
She also buys really odd presents, I often receive things like a single wooden spoon etc

I have a stash for kids birthdays, this is because people in the country I'm in seem to think 2-3 days notice on a birthday party for a kid is okay. This drives me nuts as I'll often not have the time to manage to go look for a present before the party! So I've been forced to develop my stash. I'll then look through it and find something appropriate as needed. My stash currently has a kid's chemistry set, 3x magnet block sets, a prism, a fluffy pencil case, a set of entertaining erasers, a colouring book, 2 x lego sets and some bath toys in it. It's working out for me so far, although I would much prefer to be given enough notice on a party to deliberately search out something for the birthday child.

Passthecherrycoke haha my MIL also buys me really random gifts but usually she is the opposite so I feel really bad if I don't like/use them. For my birthday she bought me a cashmere beanie hat that is just not something I would wear and was a cherry red and I have a Scarlett red coat so it totally clashed :S I have kept it thinking maybe if I have a black coat .... but it also makes me look daft .....

I also get random kitcken wear like a chopstick holder and strawberry corer !

Meant the opposite in that they are expensive so I feel bad not using them.