Clubbing together to get a perfect gift for an anniversary, birthday or special occasion is hardly a new challenge.
What is new is that tech-savvy South Africans can now use an innovative digital platform to set up or participate in ‘crowd gifting’ solutions for family and friends’ memorable life-stage milestones.
We’ve all been there: Finding the perfect gift can sometimes involve spending countless hours trawling through stores, in the real world or online, until the exhausted gift giver surrendered by purchasing anything that relieved them of their gifting obligation. And the giftee had a hard time too. Time and again they were forced to feign enjoyment or surprise at receiving an impractical or unwanted gift.
All this can now be avoided, thanks to ChipIn, which empowers the giftee or the person organising an event on his or her behalf, to register online and set up a wish list of suitable items they would like to receive as gifts.
ChipIn – which is one of Brand Hubb Group’s (BHG) growing list of e-commerce properties – is among the easiest-to-use and most cost-effective gifting services available to local consumers today and is making waves by changing how South Africans buy and give gifts.
Now choosing the perfect gift is as simple as logging into the ChipIn platform and buying or contributing to a gift that has been pre-selected by the recipient of a gift.
“You can think of ChipIn as a virtual store, pre-stocked with the goods that the giftee really wants. Each gift giver is able to select and pay for an item on a pre-populated wish list or make a cash contribution towards it,” Rob Anderson, CEO of BHG, explains.
ChipIn was conceptualised to smooth over the pain points that consumers experience when searching for the perfect gift for family or friends’ memorable life-stage milestones. It also allows the giftee to ask for items that he or she would really like without coming across as demanding or ungrateful.
For example, proud parents to be can create a list of items they would like to receive at their baby shower, and then share this list with family and friends via the ChipIn platform. Anyone who receives the list can contribute by purchasing an item or contributing part of the ticket price on that item. The platform functions seamlessly in the background to make sure that the gift list is actioned on time, with gifts delivered to the giftee’s door.
“The ChipIn platform is particularly useful for gift registry applications such as baby showers, weddings and birthdays, where it used to be almost impossible for guests to independently choose appropriate and/or unique gifts,” says Anderson. It is also a great enabler for family and friends to club together towards big ticket gifts for special occasions such as a couple’s 50th wedding anniversary.
ChipIn bridges the gap of family and friends living abroad having to try to find local gift suppliers, as well as offering a sponsorship or donation application, which is particularly valuable in times of disaster relief, stokvels or even assisting someone in need to receive an item which could make a huge impact on their lives.
The online platform allows the gift giver and giftee to exist on the same plane and get that feeling that goes hand-in-hand with gifting or receiving the perfect gift. Now you can do gifting right with ChipIn.
