Price discount is one of the usual promotional strategies used by merchants. Previous scholars focused on the effectiveness of price discount in the context of making decisions for oneself, but failed to deeply study the negative effects and reverse effects of price discount in the gift-giving context of making decisions for others. Based on this, through the design of 1 pre-experiment and 4 formal experiments, the results show that: when buying gifts for others, the gift giver has lower intention to purchase gifts with (vs. without) a discount; social risk perception plays a significant mediating role. This main effect would be robust in situations with greater social distance or higher price information accessibility, but would disappear at closer social distance and would reverse when price information accessibility were low. The findings not only supplement and improve the knowledge structure of gifts and price discounts, but also inform and guide merchants’ pricing of gifts.