1016: How Tech And Crowdgifting Is Changing Gift-Giving Culture
As the holiday season approaches, do you dread receiving gifts that you don't want or need? Seasonal socks, soap sets, and toilet joke books? I wanted to explore how tech is changing our gift-giving culture and why crowd gifting apps offer the perfect solution to such problems. Yiannis A Fafalios, co-founder of WhatWeWant shares the difficulties that he faced with gift-giving. I l learn why he built a tech solution that would make the process simpler and inherently less stressful. He also talks about what it's like to launch a tech startup/ build an app with his immediate family. The team at WhatWeWant also recently surveyed over 2,000 UK consumers to uncover how many Brits receive unwanted gifts and what they do with them, and found that 53% of UK consumers have received an unwanted gift over the past 12 months and as a result, 43% of the recipients have admitted to regifting their unwanted presents. 20% revealed they have thrown away ill-fated presents without using them and 43% have one or more gifts they have never opened or used sitting in their house. Meanwhile, evidence suggests that the gift-giving process is unpleasant for both parties: WhatWeWant app enables gift givers to share the cost of gifts with family and friends. It allows users to create a gift for an upcoming event for themselves, or for someone. The app notifies your friends and family so they can contribute towards your gift; and you can send a link to your gift to your family, friends, co-workers and anyone else who might want to contribute too. The money is saved in a secure account until the price of the gift is reached. Once you’ve raised enough, the money can be withdrawn so you can go ahead and buy what you want.