By Teresa Palagano
 
The explosion of social gifting is changing the way we celebrate special occasions, big and small. The good news: The kids are less likely to return gifts or toss them aside with a roll of the eyes. The bad news: Adults have to ensure that kids are “gifting” responsibly. Here’s a primer on all sorts of social gifting options.
 
I’ve been coasting on iTunes cards for a while now. With a crew of 16 nieces and nephews and zero time to cruise the mall, it’s become my go-to gift for the litany of birthdays, graduations, holiday parties and special events that involve presents. It’s tired, lazy, and, well, lame. ‘Here kid, go get yourself an app,’ doesn’t really convey the love and affection I have for these wonderful children in my life. I had to do better. After some research, I discovered that thoughtful, meaningful gifting can be about apps—you just have to find the right ones.
 
Today’s slew of social gifting sites and apps offer help matching people with presents without complex spreadsheets or hours of shopping. Social gifting, with its ease of use, has become the latest big buzzword in e-commerce. An explosion of players in the space has opened a ton of social gifting options. By tapping into your connections on social networks (primarily Facebook at this point) and getting prompts to give gifts to friends and family for loads of occasions, social gifting is making it far easier to deliver gifts loved ones will actually like and enjoy.
 
Social gifting is now a cool $3 billion business out of the $100 billion gift card industry. And Wrapp, one the larger players, has grown to 1+ million users. Retailers are also putting stock in social gifting. Starbucks, for instance, has reported that it expects social gifting to account for as much as 20 percent of its business in the near future.
 
So what does all this mean for our nieces and nephews? As gift recipients, they’ll be more likely to get gifts they actually want.  And as gift givers, with your credit /debit card and of course your permission, they’ll be able to give gifts that are more meaningful and adored.  But here’s the flipside: All the reminders and offers to send lots of gifts for lots of special occasions can confuse kids who are new to social media. We want the children in our lives to have big, generous hearts, but we can’t afford to send every kid in the class a $30, five-pound gummy bear for his or her birthday.
 
To help you and the kids navigate this new method of celebrating and giving, you’ll need a roadmap of the players, the offers, the pitfalls and the opportunities. The social gifting sites and apps primarily tap social data on Facebook—which means this applies to kids 13 and older (the minimum age for kids to “legitimately” have Facebook accounts).  Here are a few gifting apps:
 
Gift Matchmakers: These are the social gifting sites that primarily aim to help you match a person with a present.
 
Etsy If you prefer to give homemade, vintage and one-of-a kind gifts, this is for you. One bonus: you can filter by price.
 
Givvy This one doesn’t recommend gifts by specific social media friend, but rather, the Facebook app narrows gift suggestions by type of person. What’s cool is how the apps’ gift curators make some fantastic suggestions.
 
Wantful Unlike many of its competitors, Wantful has a foot in the both virtual and physical worlds. Hop on the site, answer a few questions such as where your niece or nephew would like to spend her free time and what kind of home she lives in; browse through eclectic offerings and create a collection of 12 choices based on the curated list Wantful assembles for you. Wantful then sends your niece or nephew a beautiful gift book featuring your choices and she selects the one she wants most.
 
Freebies: These gifting options entice you into giving kids a free gift card voucher worth, say $5, in the hope that you will add to the free offer; that they’ll acquire new customers; and/or that the recipient will spend more in the store when redeeming their free gift card.
 
Wrapp This is the major player in the space at the moment. It lets kids give, receive and redeem digital gift cards using mobile devices, and allows them to contribute to gifts given by mutual friends. So what starts out as a free $5 gift voucher to the Gap can add up to $50 when it makes the social media rounds via Facebook.
 
Make it Personal: Add video, photos, personal messages and more to these eGift cards.
 
DropGifts Link to Facebook, get reminders of important dates, select a virtual gift and it gets posted to your friend’s wall with your personalized message, photo or video. Mutual friends can choose to chip in to increase the value of the gift card.
 
Spontaneous Giving – Unlike other sites that prompt you to send a gift for a special occasion, these encourage you to send a present “just because.”
 
Giftly Let your creative juices flow using this app. Send someone anything from a cupcake, to a sailboat lesson, to a day in Tuscany. You pick the place and the dollar amount, customize the gift with a photo and hit send. The freedom here is that when the recipients go to redeem their gifts, they pay themselves, but Giftly will reimburse them that amount through their credit card. See a friend “check into” a frozen yogurt spot you frequent and you can “buy” her a double.  Because credit cards are involved, this is geared towards adults more than kids.
 
Social gifting is fun for everyone involved, but can be especially resourceful for the long-distance auntie. It can be tough knowing you can’t be there to celebrate every birthday, every milestone in your niece or nephew’s life. These apps are a great way to stay close to the kids - no matter how far away from you they might be.
 
To get the complete list of gifting apps, read the full article here.

Photo: mrf via Flickr cc
Published: August 5, 2014