We often find ourselves scrambling around looking for a last-minute gift. Whether it’s before a birthday party, maybe an anniversary party or even Christmas.
Where do we go for the last-minute gifts? Head to Google and type in ‘last minute gift ideas?’ That’s what I do. I then go page by page reading blog posts and articles such as ‘The Top 24 Gift Ideas For Christmas’ or the other titles that seem to stand out to me. I try to click on a few of them only to be directed to a website with tons of ads or nothing I’d remotely buy. None of the sites look familiar and I’m afraid to make a purchase from any of them. I think to myself, “What website do I know that has last minute gift ideas?” My next thought is Amazon…quickly I pop over to Amazon.
Now that I’m at Amazon I’m more comfortable. I see my name in the upper corner...I know I’m logged in and safe. I type ‘last minute gift ideas’ and bam – over 10,000 results. Ugh, I don’t have time to go through all the options. I ALWAYS sort by consumer ratings and then go to the left menu and click 4 starts and above. My next reaction is…man I hope I didn’t take out any good ideas. I wish I could sort by number of votes but I can’t. So I start to scroll and then change the category to electronics. I now have 172 results which is WAY better than 10,000. Although there are still a lot of options there’s nothing I like and especially nothing I can get today!
Ahh...I see the category for gift cards. Love it. So now I have a page with 49 results. All national merchants. I click ‘get by today’ and that gets me down to 10 options including 5 different Amazon eGifts, Lowes, Texas Roadhouse, Forever 21, Outback and Ulta. The problem is, I don’t like any of them!
So now what do I do? Hmm…I look at the screen and think, “Where else can I go for last minute gifts to send my mom who isn’t here in Pittsburgh?” It needs to be delivered by email. Then I think ‘’’Hey, maybe a gift I can text!” I go back to Google, type in ‘text a gift’ and I see an advertisement glowing…reading just for me! It said:
‘Text a GiftYa as a Last Minute Gift for Christmas
GiftYa the next generation gift card enables you to text a gift for any merchant in the USA to any person in your phone contact list.’
I click it. I think this is too good to be true. I read around a bit. The site looks good and I see some decent merchants. I then search for ‘Leonis Italian Pizza’ which is right down the road from her and she loves it! Bam…the results come back and there it is. Ok I’m totally excited. I get out my credit card and buy a $50 textable GiftYa to Leonis Italian Pizza for my mom and all I needed was her cell phone number. I add a short video clip from me telling her I wish she was here (or I was there, it’s way warmer in Tampa!) and I send it. Literally took me 30 seconds or less.
Other than GiftYa I couldn’t find many other options. Okay so you know I am the founder of GiftYa and I’m biased but this is how it goes for me in my mind. I believe the ‘last minute gift’ area is largely vacant. You can email a gift card, but I needed my mom’s email and she doesn’t use email just her phone. Plus the choices for gift cards are limited. I cannot get a gift card for the Italian place on the corner there let alone personalize it with a video.
While my mom will now need to get the GiftYa and figure out how to attach it to her debit card, I am able to call and walk her through it but that’s better than the alternative in my mind. Once we get the redemption part of GiftYa ironed out and a larger reach of merchants, we will really have a solution for a void. Last minute gifts and ‘gifts in the moment’ (smaller gifts of thank you).
Stay tuned!
Written by Jason Wolfe, CEO
