Gift-giving can be quite complicated. In addition to the challenge of finding the right presents for our loved ones, there is always that possibility that they may not like what they have received –a situation that is equally confusing for the recipient. What to do with the gifts that they (secretly) do not enjoy?
Then things are getting more serious when we consider the environmental impact of gift-giving. In the US, in Christmas 2019 alone, US$15.2 billion was spent on unwanted gifts. Among surveyed respondents, only 31 per cent eventually decided to keep these unwanted gifts. A great number of them –31 per cent and 20 per cent– would prefer to forward the gifts to someone else or exchange them for something different.
Much closer to home in Singapore, the situation is quite similar: Half of Singapore customers admitted that they are not happy with the gifts they have received.
“To prevent such loss in economic value and environmental damage, cash is theoretically the most efficient solution. However, giving cash as a gift is crude, and could be seen as derogatory. Hence, many people have resorted to getting gift cards, which is a convenient way to gift while reducing economic waste. This explains the rapid growth trends in the gift card market,” Gratify CEO & CFO Dao Xiong Teng explains in an email to e27.
But even gift cards are not ideal.
“If we think about it, most people would remove the price tags and the receipts from their gifts before giving them out, so that the dollar value is not so glaringly in-your-face. Yet, ironically, for gift cards, the dollar value is practically the gift itself,” Teng continues. “What we need is a gift that is as flexible as a gift card, but without having the gift value blatantly apparent and crude.”
This is the opportunity that local startup Gratify aims to seize.
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Launched earlier this month, the startup builds a platform to enable customers to purchase and send gifts to their loved ones. But what sets them apart from other e-commerce platform is that they provide options for gift recipients to receive, swap the gifts, or donate it to a charity.
The platform works by enabling the customer to choose from a wide array of products on their platform. Once they have checked out and given the recipient’s details, the recipient will be notified and be given the options.
If they choose to not accept the gift, for whatever reason, they can opt to swap it with a more suitable one as available on the Gratify platform. They can also choose to donate the value of the gift to a charity organisation that the startup is partnering with.
Straight out of the campus
Gratify is another example of tech startups that came out of a class project in university. According to Teng, the platform was developed in a graduate entrepreneurship class taught by Prof. Francis Yeoh at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
“Our class project was rated as the top of the entrepreneurship class with commendable reviews from the professor and from fellow coursemates alike. After the semester break, we continued working on the project and improving upon it. Seeing our dedication and after a very competitive selection process, the NUS School of Computing awarded Gratify with the Innovation and Enterprise Practicum Grant 2021,” he elaborates.
The idea for the platform itself was conceived during the Circuit Breaker period in Singapore when gift-giving continued to become “physical symbol of social bonds” between people.
In promoting the platform, the Gratify team focusses its marketing efforts on social media, targeting last-minute gift purchases by tech-savvy users aged 20 to 45.
“We are initially targeting to have a fan base of at least 100 users who will be strong advocates of our idea, and tap on their feedbacks to perfect the gift experience for users,” Teng says.
“It is vitally important that we are able to deliver the highest quality of gift experience such that the gifters will repeat their purchase and that the recipients will become gifters, thereby increasing our customer lifetime value. We must be remarkable enough such that we will be the first that comes to mind when our customers need to buy gifts,” he continues.
A gift that keeps on giving
Gratify was founded by a team of four co-founders: In addition to Teng, there is also Harish Venkatesan (CTO), Joy Chia (CPO), and Sudarshan Srivatsan (COO).
The startup has not raised any seed funding yet, but it has recently received an entrepreneurship grant from NUS School of Computing.
For 2021, Gratify wants to focus on improving the user experience of its platform. It plans to add more variety to its gifts offerings by including restaurants, spas, hotels and other experiences.
“We believe gifting experiences can be as fulfilling as gifting physical items. We will also be providing these merchants with digital tools to sell gift cards and track them easily,” Teng closes.
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Image Credit: Gratify
The post Just in time for Christmas: How Gratify plans to make gift-giving more efficient and sustainable appeared first on e27.