My family and friends are spread out all across the globe, so when I want to give a gift, I have to plan ahead. With shipping rates getting higher, I find myself more limited in what I can mail to family back home in England or other parts of the world for Christmas and birthdays. Luckily, the Internet has given us more options with not only staying in touch, but giving gifts – so next time you have a long-distance gift to give, you might want to try “Wrapp”ing it up!
Wrapp is a virtual service that allows you to deliver gift cards to your Facebook friends, who can then redeem them online or with the Wrapp mobile app in-store. I was recently provided with a complimentary gift card so that I could try out their service and see what it was like. There’s a variety of gift cards available, and I decided on Zappos.com so I could stock up on some hair products.
When you receive a gift card on Wrapp, you get an email notification and can then log into the site and click on “Wallet” to view your card. When I went to redeem my Zappos gift card, I wasn’t sure if I would need to click through to the site through Wrapp or not. It brought up my gift code, so I copied it, and then I hit the “I’m done shopping” button, since I already had my Zappos cart loaded. It then deleted the card – OOOPS! Luckily the code was still copied to my clipboard so I was able to paste it into my shopping cart and redeem. This was a boneheaded thing for me to do, so make sure you actually read the instructions and pay attention when you place your order! 😉 I guess I wasn’t expecting the card to be deleted as soon as I was done, but I suppose that’s meant to keep it organized? Personally, I like being able to save redeemed gift codes at least until after the order arrives in case there’s an issue, but I could be missing something here.
My other critique would be that sometimes I found the navigation to be a little confusing. Not all of the gift cards showed up for me when I was selecting my choice for review – I knew that Zappos was one of their retailers, but it wasn’t displayed anywhere on the gift card page as a choice, although I tried loading it a few times. Looking at my account again this morning, I can see it now. Maybe it was sold out before?
Your Wrapp account is tied with your Facebook account when you sign up, so to send a card, you just click on the “Friends” tab, and it pulls up all of your Facebook friends. The homepage also shows you a list of who is having a birthday soon. In order to see what gift cards are available, you’ll need to first select one of your friends from the list, and then it will display which retailers have cards on offer.
One thing I really liked is that you can choose gift cards from one of 8 countries – so for example, if I wanted to send my dad a gift card, I could pick one from a UK-based retailer. I hope their international selection will expand because I think this is a really cool feature of their site!
As I mentioned previously, you can also use the Wrapp mobile app to redeem gift cards straight from your phone in stores such as Office Depot, Gap, and Sephora. I haven’t gotten a chance to do this myself yet, as we don’t have any stores in Seaside with this capability, but the idea is that you can just store the card in your digital “Wallet”, and then show the barcode to the cashier to scan straight from your phone. They also have a few “Free” credit offers from sites like Rent The Runway and Roots, so your friends could save some money at those places if they were already planning a purchase.
Overall, I think this is a fun idea. If you have a lot of friends or relatives who live far away and don’t want to mess with going to the Post Office, a gift card might be just the alternative you are looking for. And since you send these virtual gift cards to your friends right through Facebook, it’s perfect for all those Facebook notifications that someone is having a birthday! 🙂
It’s an interesting concept but I agree that the card should remain with some sort of pending order status for a while!
That’s a neat idea but I agree, I would think the gift card would remain there if even in a pending or previously used section.
oh, it sounds like they have some bugs to work out. i would want them to be still available in a “pending” or “Used” section.
Sounds pretty cool but I agree that I would want to see the previous orders. I am sure they will work that out soon enough!
I really like the concept! We have family in Australia and South Africa so this would be really cool to use! Once they work out those bugs I bet it will be awesome!
It sounds like a great and innovative idea! Thank you for sharing!
That’s a really cool idea. It seems like everyone is on Facebook these days so it would make gifting a lot easier.
Interesting concept – but agree that the card should remain with some sort of pending order status
I have *2* wallets just so I can keep all my gift cards, receipts, and other piles of stuff that seem to build up away from the cards I use all the time. Still, trying to find my debit card in my “main” wallet or the right gift card when I go into one of the stores is a nightmare. I LOVE the idea of virtual gift cards that can be used from your phone. I have actually done this once before and it was so incredibly simple!
What a great concept. I hope all gift cards go mobile some day soon.
Hi everyone!
Michelle – I have family in Australia too!
Janel – I’m glad I’m not the only one with two wallets! Ha!
It sounds like it has promise even though there are some glitches. Thanks for the honest review as if I do try this then at least I’ll know what to look out for on the site.
Sounds interesting.
This is a cool idea! I love reading the fun things that you review because you give good insight.
I love this bc I am often behind in sending ppl gifts and this would make it easier for me not to be so belated!
Oh, that is a great idea. Just like you I have family every where and mostly out of the country so this would really work out just great. Thanks for sharing.
I like this idea! I had to ship a baby gift to germany once and WOW was that expensive!
I really like this idea! Especially since it’s tied in to Facebook, it would be easy to send off a gift card through them if you are a last-minute gift shopper! I also really like the fact that you can use the card from your phone, I wonder if we have retailers that have this option in our area!
Awesome! I needed to know about this today! I have a couple people who I’ve been meaning to send gc’s too, but didn’t feel like going to store, picking out card and gc and then mailing! This cuts out all of that and allows me to complete my task quickly.
What a great idea! With my kids living all over the US, this would be wonderful for sending them and the grandkids gifts.
This is great – I love it – we have family throughout the country and this is such a great idea! Gift cards rock 🙂
I like the concept. Even with most of my family close by, we exchange a lot of gift cards. This could add another layer of convenience for all.
Sounds like a neat service. I gift a lot of gift cards but don’t feel safe sending them so this option would be helpful!