Buy Group Gifts this Year With Social Media

I’m a big fan of the group gift. It is likely as a result of growing up the middle of five children in a household that valued getting the most bang for your buck. “Hey – this this scarf is on sale! She’ll never know, AND, we can split the cost.” Even today, as my sister’s birthday approaches, I have arranged a shared gift with my other sis. Why buy two so-so presents for twenty bucks each when we can get one awesome gift for forty? Thanks to the latest gift-giving technology (no, not cityville), there need be no more exchange of bills, coins, or cheques. It can all be facilitated online. This is especially useful when the “brothers” are in on the shared purchase.  They’re the hardest to collect from.

Social gifting is the new buzz word for what my siblings and I have been practicing since we were old enough to earn an allowance.  Except it refers, specifically, to chipping in on a gift online.  One such example of how this works is Socialgift – a plugin that businesses can add to their websites inviting purchasers to make a group purchase.  The sucker in charge or organizing the gift simply selects the product, invites others to join in the purchase via Facebook or email, and viola! Each invitee pays their portion and the gift is mailed out to the lucky recipient.

One app (still in beta), called Friendpay, goes a step further. It offers the recipient of the gift the opportunity to pre-select his or her favoured gifts. Let’s say your best friend is tired of getting the same old thing every year (free dinner at Swiss Chalet, for instance?) She can choose those gifts most to her liking through Friendgift’s enormous offerings and alert all her friends, acquaintances, and people she kinda’ knows (through Facebook, twitter, email) of what she would really, really like.  They then all have the opportunity to chip in.  Sure, an iPad is touch more expensive that a quarter chicken dinner – get enough friends together and it’s actually a lot more affordable than you might think!

All joking aside, it does make gift giving that much simpler for everyone involved.  Will this spell the end of good old fashioned gift-giving surprises?  Will the old adage “it’s the thought that counts” no longer be useful?  I hope not.  But then I again, I also hope I never again unwrap a huge white sculpture of two “adorable” kids in wedding garb. I can think of better things to set on my basement shelf than that.