Trims’ quest to eradicate junk giveaways for good
Trinkets and trash (n): 1. The mostly useless and always cheap branded promotional products that find their way to the bottom of so many conference bags. (e.g. fridge magnets, koozies and key chains.)
That’s how we see it, anyway, and something’s got to give. We’re here to start the conversation.
Up with Customer Engagement, Down with Carbon Footprint
Instant gratification has its virtues, but giving something memorable does, too. So, to drive customer engagement, reduce an event’s carbon footprint and eliminate wasted spend, we began to look for a flexible, scalable gift solution that could be delivered post show.
Online Gifting
We looked into options like Karma, Just Gift it, Wrapp, and Gyft. They all promoted a similar concept — sending gifts and/or gift cards to recipients through social media or mobile sharing, and all appeared to be geared towards a B2C or C2C audience.
At the B2C, B2B Crossroads
Then we stumbled upon Giftly. What makes Giftly unique is that it doesn’t involve specific, preselected merchants, so the possibilities are endless. Pick any merchant from anywhere for any dollar amount and create a Giftly. Our wheels began turning: the solution was intriguing, flexible, eco-friendly and personal. Voila!
Innovation–At What Cost?
But the devil is always in the details. For all the things we loved about Giftly and its peers, we couldn’t get past some of the steps that were required to make it work:
- Recipients would have to become Giftly “guests” and/or “subscribers”
- Since there are no merchant relationships, each recipient would be required to provide credit/debit card info in order to redeem their gift card
- Generally, the credit isn’t issued until after the purchase is made
As for B2B use, we don’t see companies relinquishing control of sensitive information on employees, prospects, clients, attendees or partners to third parties. Secondly, we don’t believe they would want to give a gift that requires:
- The recipient to divulge personal information, especially as it pertains to credit or debit cards
- So many steps to make the gift work
- The receiver to spend personal funds first
We spoke directly with Giftly’s founder who was both helpful and willing to explore ways to make his product compatible within a B2B environment. Lord knows we want it to work—we could use something new in our bag of tricks. Stay tuned for updates, or if you know of a virtual gift model that skips over the hurdles described above, please let us know! In the meantime, send us your thoughts.
For more information about our gifting solutions, contact us here.
