The problems with Gifting in India

By Abhik Prasad on October 16, 2012 10 Comments / 4018 views

Gifting is a pretty large industry in India and there are quite a large number of fragmented players in the online space.

A client owns an offline gifting business and is looking at expanding the base online.

While discussing about the design and technical aspects, we were also trying to brainstorm on differentiators for the business along with problems that users face.

If you have used gifting portals for sending gifts, it will be great if you can provide some feedback on:

1.) What are some of the problems you might have faced (e.g. bad website layout, difficulty in finding appropriate gifts, etc)

2.) What features you might like in a gifting provider (e.g. same day 2-hr delivery)

Any other feedback will also be much appreciated. Thank you for your time 🙂

cheers

Comments

Abhik Prasad

10 Comments

Gopikrishna Kannan October 16, 2012, 10:17 am

HI

There is lot more than setting-up a site,

– Gifting is an impulsive buy, so you cannot stock products at large

– The concept of Gifting is very subjective from buyers perspective, what you stock may not necessarily sell

– The last mile delivery will be a challenge, if you are not making good volumes then all the logistics guys will not be interested to sign-up with you, so you have to rely on the local carriers personally delivering the goods.

– The landing cost of the product should be offerdable & the packaging & distribution cost will have to be accounted during your costing….finally what you deliver at the price you charged should make sense for the customer

– UI/UX is also very important, you might have a great product but if not showcased properly people will loose sight of it

– Content is the king, you need to have a very good nice content around the products you sell, it speaks about what you offer to the customer. Content management is key

– You may have to part your profits with the payments gateways, they will charge a % for every transaction, u might have to plan about your payment partners

– sourcing of the goods, if you already have a offline presence then no problem

– You need to plan for a good social-media strategy to promote your business online

And many more, all the best for your endeavour

Cheers!

Kannan | co-founder https://smartas.in
Rajiv Lulla October 16, 2012, 12:43 pm

Hey Abhik,

Nice to have someone in the gifting space on Rodinhoods !

Do get in touch at rajiv@capricorngifting.com and we can chat about this.

Regards,

Rajiv Lulla l Founder & CEO l Capricorn Gifting Solutions Pvt Ltd l http://www.capricorngifting.com
Rajiv Lulla October 16, 2012, 12:45 pm

hey Kannan,

some very incisive points in your reply… 🙂

all the best..

Rajiv Lulla l Founder & CEO l Capricorn Gifting Solutions Pvt Ltd l http://www.capricorngifting.com
Abhik Prasad October 16, 2012, 12:54 pm

Thanks for your feedback Kannan.

My client is already in this space and all orders are placed by phone and corporate orders. His clients are now asking for the ability to place orders online which is why this push to go online.

We didn’t want to setup another cookie cutter website and hence this request for insights and pain points of current users.

cheers
Abhik Prasad October 16, 2012, 12:58 pm

Hey Rajiv,
Am not in the gifting space myself.

We are helping our client with the product design and marketing.

One of the reasons for posting this here apart from getting some feedback was to also create a repository of insights which others could tap into.

Since you are already in the gifting space, it will be great if you could share some insights about what worked for your site (e.g for marketing did email work better than SEO/SEM or how are you using social media etc )

Thanks
abhik
Gopikrishna Kannan October 16, 2012, 1:06 pm

HI Rajiv Thanks!

please do visit our site smartas.in, i saw your website it is good but see white space in the accessories category…if you like what we are doing, we can fill that space for you. Do let us know.

Cheers!

Kannan
Gopikrishna Kannan October 16, 2012, 1:07 pm

Oh cool! then your hurdles are simple 🙂

All the very best…do visit our site smartas.in, please let us know if we could be of some help to you.

cheers!

Kannan
Rajiv Lulla October 16, 2012, 1:08 pm

Kannan, has given some great insights on this.

For me, the key differentiator as an online customer (never mind if I am buying offline from you) are the following:

– Easy navigation and segregation of products in categories AND price points for quicker search and decisions making.

– Digital mock-ups where the client can add his logo and see what the final product will look like, will be a great help.

– Strong packing so that the product reaches in un-damaged condition and the logistics to back it up.

– Quicker check-out and easy payments are a no-brainer.

– A point must be made about displaying true to life pictures ( ! ) often the image on the site looks sooooo much better than the actual product 🙂

Regards,

Rajiv Lulla l Founder & CEO l Capricorn Gifting Solutions Pvt Ltd l http://www.capricorngifting.com
Sanjay Sahu June 1, 2013, 11:33 am

I was late to join this discussion, but as i am in this gifting industry i have to some views to share.

Availability of appropriate gifts is always a question as the customers wishes changes time to time, Now it is getting fulfilled with so many young innovative portals. So many new players are less innovative and following the old websites only.

I just impressed with giveter but there its UI is complex for normal untechie customers.

Next thing when comes to logistics, till is question of gift delivery with in 2hrs.

I seen some customer requirement at http://www.giftsnflowers.in for his fiancee for small village in Jharkand, He wished to deliver the cake and flowers with extra charges but it had to be done. Finally it was delivered But in a smiliar situation to another location which is 400Kms away from Jharkand it didn’t fullfilled. They fullfilled most of customers wishes to be delivered in interior areas but some times it didn’t happened.

Other gifts which can be couriered can be delivered to interior places but they take 3-5 days. Many customers remembered their loved ones occasion before one day or two days, so, it leads them to choose perishable things like flowers and cakes.

If we look at European or American countries there logistics are so established like cakes and flowers also transported by logistic provider like Fedex, UPS and others.

So, Still there is so much need for quick logistics and new innovative players had so much space in gifting industry.

New Players has to look to make fast and quality delivery services and introducing new amazing trendy gift items.

Best Regards,

Sanjay.
India Flowers and Gifts September 25, 2017, 4:23 pm

No doubt, It’s a good business but and only when you can able to provide delivery online. Because at present, there are so many big player in this field like Fnp, flora,floweraura,wini and http://www.aryanflorisit.com, there might be so many. But when you visit reviews website or their social media pages, you can found mostly bad reviews and complain about late delivery or poor quality of product. People love timely delivery and good products how can you arrange, you can’t take guarantee because many times local florists who are associated with don’t deliver at suitable time due to their own ease. Then you are only one responsible for failure of delivery and spoiling the occasion of someone.