As sure as Christmas Day follows Christmas Eve, you can bank on the fact that a great many of us will leave it right until the last few doors of the Advent calendar before even thinking about our Christmas shopping.
Until now, that meant clicking on the first relatively suitable thing we spotted on Amazon (thank Prime for next-day delivery!), or a speedy trolley dash around Walmart.
Gift idea generation
My dad is a doozy (he's a sucker for socks), and mum and wife cause no headaches, but there are four people in my life I always struggle with: older brother, sister-in-law, teenage niece and grandmother.
The main mistake to avoid — regardless of who you're buying for — is being too generic with your ChatGPT prompt. Ask it for "gift ideas for a teenage girl," and you might get lucky, but it's more likely you'll look through a list of items that are inappropriate for the individual, too expensive or both.
Think about the recipient's hobbies, interests and likes. Be specific about the city they live, any life events coming up, and presents they've enjoyed in the past.
Tell it what you don't want to buy, too. That way, you can avoid repeating a purchase you made last year or getting gift suggestions they're never going to enjoy opening.
And how much money you want to spend — you neither want to break the bank or end up looking like a cheapskate.
There are no hard and fast rules for prompt engineering, but the more detail you add, the better results you can expect.
I ended up going with the following prompt:
"Give me 5 Christmas gift ideas for my 17-year-old niece who lives in Chicago. She loves dance, eating at fast food restaurants, going to the mall with friends, and The Flash TV show. I got her a crafty gift last year, but don't want to again. Her bedroom is green and likes to match things. She's likely going to university next year. I want to spend around $50 (I can stretch a little if necessary)."
Within seconds, ChatGPT spat out:
- Dance class / workshop gift card
- The Flash x green-accent bedroom bundle
- Mall & munchies day
- Dance-friendly tech
- University starter kit
I wasn't sure about option 2 (she's 17, not 7!), but the rest looked promising. I ended up going with that 'mall & munchies' gift card that would let her and some friends do some shopping and brunch.
I even took up ChatGPT on its suggestion to "wrap the cards in a faux ticket or “mall pass” printed card."
Remember that you can follow up with further requests or questions after your first prompt is answered. So, if you don't like what you see, ask for more ideas or add more detail into the profile of the person you're buying for.
Speedy product reviews
My brother has been dropping hints for months — he keeps talking about how he's never owned a smart speaker, but would love to give one a try (subtlety never was his strong point).
Despite writing for tech publications for over a decade, they're a bit of a blind spot in my expertise. Naturally, the first thing I did was to visit Tom's Guide's advice on the best smart speakers, but I wanted to then get ChatGPT to compare reviews of the main options with my brother in mind.
Specificity is again key to the right prompt. And you can get really smart here, asking ChatGPT to present the information in a certain way. My mind always works best with tables when comparing different things, so that's what I asked for:
"Create a table comparing the main pros and cons of the following smart speakers. Please bear in mind user reviews and reviews from specialist tech websites when you do this. Please also include a column/row for the US RRP: Amazon Echo (4th gen), Sonos Era 300, Amazon Echo Dot, Apple HomePod 2, Sonos Move 2, Google Nest Audio."
The summary table it gave me — complete with pros, cons, RRPs and a 'best for' column — was certainly useful, but I was still torn between three options. So I pushed ChatGPT to commit to the one that best suited my brother by giving it a few extra details about the recipient:
"Give me the verdict on the best option to buy for my brother. He's never used a smart speaker before, doesn't use Apple products and is a big music fan demanding the best quality. I don't want to spend more than $100."
Google Nest Audio it is!
Comparing prices
Price comparison is the kind of money-saving prompt that AI chatbots are really good at, but a lot of users don't realize they can even do.
If online shopping was the innovation that saved the hassle of having to walk up and down Main Street, going into every shop to see what was in stock and how much it cost, getting ChatGPT to do price comparison is the next iteration of again.
My sister-in-law is the biggest gamer I know, and was first in line to bag a new Nintendo Switch 2 when they landed in June. She opted for a Mario Kart World bundle and has spent so much time racing Mario, Princess Peach and co that she hasn't added many other games to her collection.
That's great news for me!
After deciding to buy Donkey Kong Bananza (I gave ChatGPT a rest, using this site's guide to the best Nintendo Switch 2 games instead), I wanted to find out which store had it cheapest.
Outside of the product itself, I made sure ChatGPT was on my wavelength by specifying that the game should be new (as opposed to used), available for next-day delivery and where I'm located.
And because I hate walking into the trap of finding a great price on a purchase before being whacked by massive postage fees, I got it to factor that aspect in, too.
"Can you do some price comparison for me. I'm trying to find a brand new Donkey Kong Bananza on the Nintendo Switch 2 from a US online store (I don't want to go to a physical store or click and collect). Ideally, I need next day delivery to mainland US, so factor that into the price, too. Also search for any places where I might be able to use an extra discount code. Please give me all of the most popular stores (Walmart, Best Buy, etc) and any more obscure online stores you might find."
The result was a very easy-to-use table that directed me to the best price at Walmart. I then asked ChatGPT to provide me with a link directly to it, and I was checking out just a few minutes later.
Make things personal
Everybody has someone in their family who utters these immortal words every December: "Don't get anything for me... I don't need anything". In my case, it's my grandmother.
For somebody who's already lived through 88 other Christmas Days, she may very well be right. But she doesn't get away with things that easily!
What I know about her from previous holidays and birthdays is that she gets a real kick out of anything that's personalized. It can really lift a gift from something quite ordinary into something that feels special.
I knew she already had some bits, so I asked ChatGPT to think of what else could work:
"I want to buy a personalized gift for my 88-year-old grandmother. She loves anything that's pretty for the home, pottering in the garden and watching professional wrestling! She doesn't travel any longer. The gift can be something that is pre-personalized or that I can personalize after purchase."
One or two of the suggestions I got back (e.g. carved garden stone, wrestling throw blanket, engraved bird feeder) were good ideas but, when I checked, carried shipping dates after December 25.
How blessed am I to call you my Gran so dear, Tending fair roses and frogs hopping near. May this small gift bring brightness and cheer, And grace your sweet garden through each passing year.
So I asked it to narrow down five more ideas that I could buy and personalize myself at home.
The first response was my favorite: hand-decorated garden pots ("Buy plain terracotta or ceramic plant pots and decorate them yourself with her name, flowers, butterflies, or garden motifs").
My wife is a fab artist, so knew I could rope her into help. But I just wanted one further layer of customization to suit my grandmother specifically. I thought she's appreciate a short poem, so I told ChatGPT what I did and didn't want it to include:
"I really like Hand-Decorated Garden Pots. Please can you help compose a pleasant four-line rhyming poem about how much lucky I am to have her as a grandmother and that I hope this gift helps brighten up her garden. She particularly enjoys looking after the roses and keeping an eye out for frogs. Please don't mention wrestling!"
I was really happy with the result above.
Five top tips for Christmas shopping success with ChatGPT
- Make your prompts specific: the golden rule about writing perfect prompts applies here
- Keep probing: don't get any ideas that really fit or want to get specific? Keep nudging ChatGPT until you get the right response
- Get the most of all ChatGPT's training: price comparison and poetry-writing prowess are just two examples that can help
- Ask for a format that suits you: not everybody likes reading long passages of text. ChatGPT can churn out tables, bullet points, charts, images and more
- Get it to go the extra mile: once you've whittled down the perfect pressie, request links to reviews or straight to an online store to buy
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