With the holiday season launching in full force this week, we've focused on three startups that have created innovative digital solutions for buying gifts.
GiftSimple helps groups collaborate on gifts that recipients actually want. Presentify.me turns daily deal vouchers into presentable gift certificates, and Barkbox sends your dog a new treat every month.
GiftSimple: A Social Gift Registry for Any Occasion
Quick Pitch: GiftSimple is a gift registry on Facebook.
Genius Idea: Making it easy for Facebook friends to split the cost of shared gifts.
Mashable's Take: Your friends might roll their eyes if you create a department-store registry for your birthday party, but GiftSimple is hoping that the idea is more feasible if it lives on your Facebook profile and encourages group gifts.
"Many people find it difficult to save up for a large-ticket item, and receiving contributions toward that purchase would really help; but organizing a group gift offline can be hassle," says GiftSimple founder Jessica Lachs. "At the same time, we all get presents we don't want."
GiftSimple, which launched earlier this week, allows users to create a gift list and post it to their Facebook walls. Their friends can easily chip in whatever amount they'd like toward the gift. Even if the recipient doesn't raise the full amount of the gift, he or she can "cash out" at any time to collect the money raised. The startup collects a 3% fee on the total amount raised.
Knocking out two big problems in gift giving -- finding the right gift and coordinating group buying -- at once is a good move. Startups such as LetsGiftIt, Shareagift, and SocialGift have all been working on one or the other of these problems, but none of them has pursued the solution of simply asking people what they want and then facilitating a collaborative gift.
Presentify.me: A Tool For Turning Daily Deal Coupons Into Gifts
Quick Pitch: Presentify.me customizes daily deal vouchers to make them attractive gift certificates.
Genius Idea: Making daily deals presentable gifts.
Mashable's Take: You'll buy a gift on sale without qualms, but when it comes to gift-wrapping a Groupon, you think twice. Presentify.me wants to cure you of this hesitation by making daily deal site coupons just as attractive as full-price gift certificates.
The new site lets you choose an occasion-appropriate design for your vouchers, and it moves mention of the daily deal sites where you bought them to a discreet corner. Right now the voucher makeover wizard only works with deals from Tippr, Groupon, Deal-find, and GiltCity, and it only offers six gift certificate designs. More options in both categories are on the way.
Presentify.me is an appealing service. We'll definitely be using it this month. But whether or not it can turn its simple app into a business and fend off deal sites' own efforts to turn deals into gifts is less certain.
BarkBox: Birchbox for Dogs
Quick Pitch: BarkBox is a monthly subscription service that caters to dogs.
Genius Idea: Carving out a fresh niche in subscription services.
Mashable's Take: Man has been treating his best friend more and more like a fellow man for a long time. Dog bakeries? Check. Dog clothes? Yep. Winter coats? Of course. Doggie Daycare? There's an app for that.
So it's only natural that Fido gets a holiday gift. And BarkBox wants to be the one that keeps on giving. The startup offers monthly shipments of dog goodies such as bones, treats, shampoos and leashes for a $25-per-month fee.
It's similar to the subscription services that Birchbox offers for women who dig makeup samples, Hoseanna offers for toiletries and Manpacks offers for men who don't like to buy their own underpants.
It also reminds us of Groupon's massive wake, which has given the world daily deal sites for every niche (dogs included). We're not sure how many subscription services the world needs, but BarkBox's success is hanging on it being a high number.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, narvikk
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
