It’s your best friend’s birthday and you only have $20 to spend on her. That iPad that she’s been drooling over for the past few months is way above your price range, so you settle for a basket of lotions and hope that she’ll forgive you for being a poor college student.
But have no fear, collegiettes, because Shareagift.com, the world’s first fully dedicated social gifting website, is here to solve your gifting problems! Launched last week in the US and the UK by Justine Angelli, the CEO of Absolute Technology Portfolio (ATP), Shareagift provides an easy way to buy a large-scale gift for a friend and split the cost between many different people.
Justine first came up with this idea because she was asked to contribute towards a laptop for her aunt three years ago. “My cousin, who was organizing the gift, really struggled with collecting all the money together in time,” she says. “She didn’t have enough cash to buy the laptop herself, so the whole thing ended up being a bit of a nightmare for her. I thought wouldn’t it be great if there was a really easy way to do this online, without anyone having to give out their bank details, or having to keep reminding people for money, and where friends could leave messages for the recipient and make the whole thing into something fun instead of a chore!”
Shareagift seeks to change the way people go about buying gifts by allowing friends to pool hard-earned money in order to give an individual something they really want, rather than giving them many small things that they may not use.
The site operates on the premise that a primary organizer will choose a gift (which can literally be anything from a snack basket to a new car!) from any retailer on or offline. Then the creator makes a gift page on Shareagift, sending the link via email to friends who can contribute to the gift by making payments using PayPal, credit or debit cards. Once enough money has been raised, the primary organizer returns to the site, collects the money and buys the gift!
Justine is also excited about the student-specific properties of Shareagift. “We are particularly keen to introduce the site to students as a way of helping them raise the funds for their education,” she says. “I have supported a number of charitable organizations linked to education and have followed the issue of tuition fees and rising student debt closely over the last few years. I think there are great opportunities for students to use Shareagift to help raise funds from their friends and family to alleviate financial burdens.”
Additionally, Justine hopes that charitable organizations will begin to use Shareagift as a way to raise money as well.
“My favorite aspect of Shareagift is the facility it creates for people from all over the world to come together to get something really special for someone they love,” says Justine. She hopes to develop Shareagift into a national brand in the near future, making it the first thing that people think of when they need to give a gift.
So say good-bye to the nightmares of organizing group gifts, and say hello to the fun, creative gift-giving properties of Shareagift.