Shailie got the idea for an online gift registry when she saw a close friend get crappy gifts for her wedding.
“My friend was being showered with well-meaning but utterly useless wedding presents. I felt sad that the newlyweds didn’t have very many gifts they would have love to have had on their D-day. Consequently a discussion over a cup of coffee a few days later gave birth to this business,” she said.
In a day and age where we are so vocal about our needs and desires and are used to having things at our finger tips, why not use this accessibility to our advantage. There is no reason to be stuck carrying out an age old way of conducting a ritual and not updating ourselves with more convenient and smarter ways of gift giving.
Shailie Parekh, vice president and cofounder of
Wishtry (pronounced ‘Wishtree’ but like ‘try’ of ‘Registry’) tells us more about this useful madness called ‘gift registries’.
What is a gift registry? Who can use it?
In India there are multiple occasions to celebrate - weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, birthdays, graduations and housewarming parties, are only a few among many we can come up with off the top of our minds. But our dilemma starts when we receive multiple similar gifts or things we have no use for. Here is when opening a gift registry can make lives simpler and gifting a more enjoyable experience. A gift registry allows you to compile gifts you would want to receive and share it with your family and friends. Literally anybody and everybody can use it. In fact, at Wishtry we allow you to create a gift registry for any and every reason.
You can get as creative as you want and open a Wishtry even if you are looking at raising funds or requesting for supplies for special causes. If you are a children’s NGO you can open a Wishtry gift registry and add items across the web and from offline stores and share it with donors. It is a great way to engage people with your cause directly.
Other gift registries have tried but have shut down. So why do you think you will last?
There are two reasons. Though this concept is a huge hit in the west, a few years back the Indian market was not ready and was still grappling with understanding the e-commerce and online shopping space. So the online gift registries operating at that time failed. This we can confidently say is not the case now. Online shopping and e-commerce has become a way of life. People order food, book cabs, shop for clothes and much more all online.
Wishtry sets itself apart from the rest of registries with a unique USP. We are efficient because are model is free of inventory expenses, yet is able to offer a gamut of options from all over the web with leading retailers (like Snapdeal, Flipkart) and also offline stores. Also Wishtry stands apart with a 360 solution rather than a one way service. It allows cash gifts, personalised thank you notes among a plethora of additional features to create a multidimensional experience.
And Wishtry’s future plans to be the number one gift registry?
One of the biggest plans in the pipeline is our own bar code scanner. A customer could go to a store and just scan the bar code which will automatically be added to one’s Wishtry. We also want to tie up with niche category small stores and websites. That way if a user makes a Wishtry and a small website is mentioned on the bar code, it could even increase the website’s traffic, and enhance our affiliation with varied portrayals.
BW Reporters
Regina is a reporter for BW Businessworld. In her previous assignments, she has worked with Independent television Network as a news anchor and reporter in Sri Lanka
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