Social Gifting seems to be the next big thing. With Facebook’s purchase of Karma, Social Gifting is going to become the focus of many social networking companies.
There are a couple of interesting companies in the social gifting space that I particularly like. Wrapp is my favourite so far.
Wrapp is a B2C social gifting smartphone app that is focused on Birthday eGift Cards – The app is heavily integrated with your Facebook profile. It pulls data (friends – birthday dates) from your account and lists upcoming birthdays with a list of egifts (i.e. gift cards or memberships) available to give to them for free / buy for them.
Some of us will not use Wrapp because:
– Many smartphone users are not interested in downloading new apps very often.
– Wrapp is most suitable for Facebook delivery, which is less than 30% of the egift card market.
– Wrapp is focused on birthday gifts only – that’s less than 50% of gift giving occasions.
Wrapp will be popular among the tech savvy social media lovers – 15 to 30 year olds – as a new, cool way of giving free / less costly birthday gifts. But selling a brand’s egift card via the brand’s online store will remain popular and relevant because of all the additional values an egift card solution offers. Here are a few:
– The consumer has the option to select delivery method: Email, Facebook, Mobile
– More control in the gifting experience by the retailer or restaurant – very important for branding purposes
– It is relevant to all gift giving occasions including birthdays
– It is simpler to purchase / process among the mainstream (No iPhone or Android app is required)
– Based on latest First Data stats, More than 75% of consumers would still like to purchase their gift cards from the gift card’s brand owner
Our service will co-exist with companies like Wrapp. Wrapp helps retailers and restaurants give away free or low priced gift cards or even coupons by directly offering a gift giving app to the Wrapp users. Virtual Next helps retailers and restaurants sell egift cards directly to their customers. A retailer should have both Wrapp and Virtual Next services in place.