Social gifting is the subject of lots of events, seminars and conferences.

“Brick-and-mortar retailers are all looking for new, more efficient ways to drive sales into stores without diluting their brands … we wanted to really see how retailers can leverage the megatrends of smartphones and social networks,” said Hjalmar Winbladh, chief executive of Wrapp.

Wrapp is essentially an app that can run on smartphones, tablets and computers. It allows Facebook friends to buy each other gift cards from participating retailers either individually or by teaming up, which they can store on their mobile devices and redeem either online or inside physical stores. Retailers like it because there is little marketing cost and because customers often end up buying more once they are inside the store.

via Social gifting: the new buzzword in e-commerce | Reuters.

Ultimately the consumer will decide the future here, but social gifting stands a significant chance of being huge; the social aspects of shopping are brought together with the ease and convenience of the internet. And of course most of us have already made social gifting transactions.