ChipIn, a South African Crowd gifting platform that enables a user to set up or participate in crowd-gifting ’solutions for family and friends’ memorable life-stage milestones has unveiled a standalone online platform that offers a credible solution and unique user experience.
ChipIn is one of Brands Hub Group (BHG) list of e-commerce properties ,initially launched under the BHG umbrella, the company has now matured to trade on its own merits. The online solution unites the gift-giver and gift-receiver around the common goal of a perfect gifting experience. It makes the gift-giver’s life simpler by removing the need to shop in the physical world and strips out the uncertainty of scanning thousands of pages of goods online by providing a list of gifts, pre-approved by the receiver.
“We spent the last two years incubating and refining the business to deliver on its full promise and can today unveil a standalone online platform that offers a credible solution and unique user experience,” says Rob Anderson, chief executive of BHG.
Finding the perfect gift would involve spending countless hours trawling through stores, in the real world or online until the exhausted gift-giver capitulated by purchasing anything that relieved them of their gifting obligation.
ChipIn is aimed at smoothing over the pain points consumers experience when searching for the perfect gift for family or friends’ memorable life-stage milestones. It also allows the giftee to ask for items that he or she would really like without coming across as demanding or ungrateful.
The solution converts the traditional gift registry concept into a full, seamless online solution that lends itself to all types of occasions, with exceptional potential to disrupt the traditional gift registry market for baby showers and weddings, as well as facilitating “crowd gifting” for donations and sponsorships.
For example, proud “parents to be” can create a list of items they would like to receive at their baby shower, and then share this list with family and friends via the ChipIn platform.
Anyone who receives the list can contribute by purchasing an item or contributing part of the ticket price on that item. The platform functions seamlessly in the background to make sure that the gift list is actioned on time, with gifts delivered to the giftee’s door.
“The ChipIn platform is particularly useful for gift registry applications such as baby showers, weddings and birthdays, where it used to be almost impossible for guests to independently choose appropriate and/or unique gifts,” says Anderson.
ChipIn also bridges the gap of family and friends living abroad having to try to find local gift suppliers, as well as offering a sponsorship or donation application, which is particularly valuable in times of disaster relief, stokvels or even assisting someone in need to receive an item which could make a huge impact on their lives (e.g., a bicycle, a computer, or appliances to set up a home.)
“We believe this solution will restore the art of gifting by addressing the pain points involved in buying and exchanging gifts in the traditional way,” concludes Anderson.
