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What Businesses Can Do About Gifts on eBay

The world just might be quirkier than many once thought it to be. A research organization has found that it is often the case that companies gifts bestowed on employees often end up for sale on eBay. Zlimit, an incentive and reward tracking company, performed a search on the popular auction site eBay and found dozens of items, where the seller indicated the gift was from their company.

The variety of items listed on eBay and mentioned by Zlimit illustrates how traditional corporate gifts no longer hold the value they once did among employees. "Employers purchase gifts for their employees for a variety of reasons: to boost morale, to encourage results or to reward certain behaviors. The last thing you want to have happen as an employer is for the gift to be resold," explains Jeff Hock, Marketing Manager for Zlimit. "But that is what`s happening."

And how can businesses which bestow gifts on their workers ensure that there won`t be any "Indian giving" or entrepreneurial activities using the gifts the company spent money itself on? ?There are several approaches an employer can take,? Marketing Manager Hock says "One way would be to learn each employee?s likes and dislikes, then buy each individual a unique gift. This of course is terribly time consuming and difficult."