AIBU… to think that there should be a really simple ‘gifting’ app?

[Rafterplease]

I’m sitting at work daydreaming about the day I quit and start my own business…. And here’s my idea. Please tell me what you think of it!

Sending gifts offline is a huge faff. You have to buy it, wrap it, go to the post office, send it. As a working mum this is annoying. I’d FAR rather have a slick, easy app that I could use to send a nice gift.

But I can’t find this app anywhere.

Here are the problems with what’s currently out there:

1. Amazon: Great product range, but their gifting options SUCK. There’s no choice of card or wrapping paper, it’s hard to figure out which items you actually can gift wrap (many you can’t), and you don’t figure it out until late in the ordering process
   
2. Amazon AND other websites: Require you to know the giftee’s physical address, which I never do, and I hate having to message people to ask for it. Lack features like inbuilt birthday reminders, personalised cards
   
3. Moonpig and Inklycards app: Good for cards but not for gifts
   
4. Parcelgenie app: Brilliant for small gifts, but terrible product range and not good at cards
   
   So my idea is to combine all the good things that are out there into one single app. My app would…
   

• Have a big selection of gifts, ideally linking to lots of retailers. Big things and also tiny, cheap but nice gifts for smaller occasions
  
• Let you import birthdays directly from your Facebook contacts, so you didn’t have to enter them manually. You could then set reminders if you like
  
• Have a facility where you entered the address of the person you were sending to if you knew it, but also a facility where you entered only the mobile number or email address of the person if that’s all you knew, and they got a nice automated message asking them for their address
  
• Let you choose the wrapping paper, card and ribbon in an easy and quick way, and have cheaper/more expensive options for wrapping and fast/slow postage. Have cool, non-twee cards which are personalised like Moonpig does, and have handwriting personalisation feature like Inklycards does
  
• Allow you to send a card without a gift
  
• Connect to Paypal so payment was super fast and easy, but also allow you to enter credit card if you didn’t want to use Paypal
  
• In general be super easy and fast. The aim would be that you could send a birthday present while you were walking down the street!
  
  So…
  
• Do you think it’s a good idea? Would you use it?
  
• Is there an app out there that I’ve missed? If so, well maybe I won’t make my millions, but at least I’ll learn that I can send gifts easier than I thought : )

[FlipFantasia]

I would personally hate to get an automated 'spam' text asking for my address! If you can't be assed to ask me (and then store it in a simple google doc for future reference) that's not my problem.

I agree that it can be tricky (I live in the us and sending gifts to friends and family in ireland and Europe is a faff) but I would not expect the giftee to have to do any work...

[RainbowFlutterby]

Nope, sorry.

How would you manage it? Would people send gifts to you and then you do the wrapping service and send it out? Who would be responsible for items missing, late or damaged?

It doesn't really sound feasible.

[DoJo]

I'm not quite sure what you're after - advice about whether it would be possible to develop an app like this from a technical point of view, advice as to whether anyone would use it, or advice as to whether it would actually be possible to set this up?

FWIW, I might be tempted to use such an app, but I would NEVER send my address to an automated service. TBH, if you are sending a present to a friend, I think the onus should be upon you to find their address rather than expecting them to provide it to an unknown third party.

What you are suggesting sounds like a MASSIVE venture - you would need to negotiate agreements with all the retailers you wanted to use and who would actually do the gift wrapping?

[Rafterplease]

No, you wouldn't send in a gift - you would order a gift off the app just like you order something from Amazon. We would be responsible for missing/late/damaged again just like Amazon is.

[Rafterplease]

Yes, it's a big venture! I do actually work sort of in this space already so I have an idea of the business and technical issues.

I'm looking for opinions on whether you'd personally use this sort of service, and what you would or wouldn't like about it as a user.

[Rafterplease]

On the automated request for address thing, here's why it's attractive to me.

I recently saw on Facebook that a friend of mine who I haven't seen for a couple of years is engaged. Yay! I wanted to send him a card or small gift. So I asked via Facebook for his address. But he didn't answer. A couple of weeks go by... now I am using an app called Parcelgenie (the one I mention above). This lets you send one of these automated text things. I send a gift on it and he gets a text saying something like, "A friend of yours wants to send you a gift, but doesn't know your address. Please reply with your address." (I actually tried it out on my husband first to check that the text was ok and the gift was nice... I thought it was, although you may disagree!). This time he did reply to the text, my little gift got sent, he emailed me to say thank you and now we are planning a brunch. All good... but like I say he didn't reply to my original Facebook message. I've had that experience before, people often just don't reply to messages asking them for their address when it's clear that you want to send a gift or card. For some reason I feel like when you've ALREADY sent the gift or card it's a bit more compelling that they have to let the system know their address in order to actually receive it.

[TranquilityofSolitude]

I would use something like this at the right price. At the moment it can be difficult to put together a hamper-type gift for someone with a reasonable delivery price. For example, at Christmas you can order hampers from M&S etc but delivery is really expensive. Alternatively, you can buy hampers from Amazon and delivery is much cheaper, but gift options are not always available and last year my aunt received one and never knew who it was from because there was no delivery note.

I also send a lot of presents to children I hardly know, so some kind of ideas or suggestions service would be good.

[Heels99]

I don't think your product range could match Amazon.
You would need a warehouse of stuff plus a team of wrappers. or an arrangement with suppliers that they would fulfil orders and wrap and send for you.
I think gifts by post fall into two categories, large warehouse Amazon order anything, and small niche beautiful wrapped items. Yours is trying to do both.
Product range would be the clincher for me. I do buy gifts and have them delivered by Amazon. I prefer to write and send card myself.
Good luck with your venture

[RainbowFlutterby]

So I would order from Amazon (via a link) and that would be sent to your address for you to wrap and send out? Why would I need an app to do that? Surely I could just add your address to my Amazon account? But then how would you know what was being sent and then take responsibility for it? Or would I be ordering through your account, in which case how is it paid for? Also what about delivery charges? The item would be posted twice so that would double the postage costs.
All for some pretty paper?

I don't think an Amazon link is doable, or that they would even allow it and without Amazon you've lost a massive range.

[Trapper]

The app would be the easy bit! You would need a supply chain in place that could compete with Amazon et al on speed and price. Because your USP would be the dispatch process, you will need to hold stock which means you will have serious cash-flow considerations. Speaking of cash - you will need to invest a stupid amount in marketing as Google adWord prices for Birthday, Gift, Last Minute etc. are expensive as they are (understandably) popular.

[LadyLuck10]

But almost anything you purchase online these days come with a giftwrap option anyway, also just use the address of the person you want to give a gift to as the 'delivery address'. I definitely don't think this would work, it's already being done op.

[Trapper]

The other problem you will have is Phishing scams, where people send messages that appear to come from your company asking for addresses and passwords that can be used to defraud.
Unsolicited emails asking me to create an account and provide my details on the vague promise of a gift would be deleted from my phone without a second thought. What then? What happens to the gift if the recipient doesn't respond for a long time/ at all? Suppose I have an old phone number for my friend that has now been reissued to someone else - they could login and get the gift sent to them, even though they weren't the planned recipient. How is that resolved, and at whose cost?

[Stormingateacup]

Sounds like a good idea, I would use it.

Some practical questions (about wrapping etc.) leap to mind but that's not what you asked. If it worked, I'd use it.

A useful feature would be it keeping a record of your past orders and whom it was for. So you can look and see what you got them last year or what you bought for someone else that went down well etc.

[Stormingateacup]

So a reminder would pop up 'in two weeks' its Dad's birthday. Last year you bought him some gardening gloves and a dictionary.' Something like that.

[Clarinet9]

NO

you are talking about gift wrapped drop shipping with nice cards?

wouldn't want to pay the mark up sorry

[FluffyRedSocks]

I think it's a good idea.
However if I had a text or email asking for my address id delete it.

Maybe a search function (no idea if this is possible!) where you can search the persons whole name and it pulls up possible address' so if you had a rough idea of where they lived? :/

[Rafterplease]

That's a good idea. Maybe you can connect to the phone book in some way to search for address? I'd be surprised if it's possible and no ones done it before, but maybe they haven't. Hmmm.

[Rafterplease]

Love the idea of reminders having your gifting history - hadn't thought of that.

[Rafterplease]

I have so far only sent three gifts using this 'text your address' thing and admittedly one of them was to my husband (!) but so far 100pc of giftees have given their address, ie haven't thought it was spam or phishing

[TestingTestingWonTooFree]

The other downside of Amazon is you have to pay the gift wrap charge for each item. I find that off putting; sometimes I want to send a number of little gifts to someone, paying £3 per item (or whatever it is) makes it too expensive.

[DoJo]

How would you avoid an additional delay for the wrapping and despatch once you get past the point of purchase?

That would be my concern as a user as I would rather have someone get an non-wrapped present on their actual birthday than something beautifully wrapped a couple of days later.

[Rafterplease]

Good question. What if you flipped it around - what if you could do all your shopping ahead of time and it only wrapped and shipped when the birthday was coming up? You could do your birthday shopping say every six months instead of needing to do everyone's separately

[ChatEnOeuf]

I like the idea, but I wouldn't give my address out to an unknown text message. It'd be v useful to us at the moment as we are living overseas and postage prices to home are completely unreasonable.

You will have to factor in inevitable delays in delivery, and people will expect miracles, but I think it could work.