This post is brought to you by the seriously super nice guys at PickURGift on behalf of the seriously super nice gals at Brandfluential. While I was compensated with product for this post, all opinions and eye-rolling jokes are solely my own.
As my dad used to say, “You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose. But you can’t pick your friend’s nose.”
I never quite understood why he regularly shared that life lesson with me, but I guess it worked because I’ve yet to pick a friend’s nose.
What I have picked, however, are gifts. Whether it’s an Xbox game for my buddy Brian or a gorgeous, funky necklace for my beautiful wife Allie (No, honey. Sorry, this doesn’t mean you’re getting a new necklace), like most people I spend a lot of time shopping for gifts.
Gift giving is a full-time job. Actually, it’s worse. It’s just so unbelievably exhausting and stressful. What if they hate my gift? What if I look too cheap? What if they have it already? There’s just too much room for error.
Then along came the Wish Lists. Like Bridal Registries, Wish Lists let you basically put together a long list of exactly what you want for your birthday, anniversary, whatever day. That’s all well and good but people forget to upkeep them, plus it takes a big element of surprise out of the whole gift giving thing.
So when I was approached by Brandfluential (easily my favorite brand-to-blog connecting company) to help try out and promote a new gift-picking website, I was certainly intrigued.
Meet pickURgift. (For those of you having difficultly, it’s pronounced “Pick YOUR gift.”)
The easiest way to describe this site is that it’s a “Reverse Wish List.”
A what what now?
A reverse wish list. Basically, you pick out a bunch of gifts you want to buy someone, send them the list and have them pick something out. Then you go and buy it for them. Pretty simple and straightforward idea, right?
So why hasn’t anyone thought of it before? Honestly, I have no idea, but like I said, I was certainly intrigued.
Brandfluential paired a bunch of us bloggers up to give pickURgift a spin. Kind of like a Secret Santa only it’s not a secret and it’s August. So yeah, nothing like Secret Santa.
Anyways, I was paired up with Rob Babiak from Look What Mom Found… and Dad Too. My first challenge was to figure out exactly what Rob likes.
After scouring his Facebook and Pinterest accounts I learned that he likes the Tennessee Titans and downloading books for his Kindle. Other than that, I was still fairly clueless, so I flat out asked him what he likes. And well, sadly, Rob wasn’t much help either. “I like sneakers” was pretty much all he said.
I let those ideas percolate in my head while I set up my account at pickURgift.
Signing up is pretty straight forward as you only need to input some very basic information about yourself.
After the 2-second registration, you get to start adding contacts to your account. Again, it’s just a few basic forms, and you can even add a photo if you’d like.
I had started this before I had all my information available, so I actually added Allie as a contact (whose name you can see listed on the confirmation alert below). After adding your contact, you get a few big name store suggestions, but by no means are you limited to shopping at any of those merchants.
Once your contact is added, the real gift-giving begins. You start by building out a Gift Page. Give it a name and select who it’s for and that’s really all you need. There are a number of additional settings you can access by clicking the link (or tab) that offers additional information like number of gifts available for selection.
Then the fun really begins. After adding a bookmarklet to your browser bar (that’s just a tiny little “favorites” type button), you can shop till you drop. Where can you shop? Anywhere the World Wide Web takes you! All you need to do is go to a specific product page and then click the UR Button. A small sidebar slides out on the side and lets you add any info if you’d like or just hit the button at the bottom to add it to a list. It’s that easy.
I knew Rob liked the Titans so I went to the TitansLockerRoom.com and selected a few fun items. I added a few goofy gifts (like a Rubik’s Cube coaster set) that was listed on his Pinterest page. And then I went to Amazon and hit the mother load. I picked out a number of accessories for his Kindle and even a 1-year Membership for Amazon Prime.
As luck would have it, Rob was showing off one of his new tattoos on his Facebook page. Bingo! A quick search for “Tattoos” on Amazon and I added a few art books and related DVDs.
You can go back and add items to a gift page at any time. So I kept at it for a few days. You can always go back and either delete an item or edit some of its content (change the image, alter the text or even leave a special note or comment for the recipient of your gift).
When I was all done, I clicked the Send to a Friend button to give Rob his gift list. After clicking on the link in the notification email, Rob was brought to a page showing off all his gift options. He selected a few and that triggered a notification alert back to me.
Ignore the repetitive thumbnails in the screenshot below, as this was an early beta version of the site with a few bugs still being worked out. The alerts page shows me exactly what Rob picked out.
And now I can easily click through the items in my alert, go to the appropriate online stores (Like Amazon.com or TitansLockerRoom.com) and shop for Rob’s gifts. At that point, it’s just like picking out a gift online and shipping it to your friend.
Overall, it was a pretty easy experience and the gang behind pickURgift were completely open to any and all feedback. They’re just a bunch of regular guys who came up with a neat idea for a site that they thought would help people give gifts, so they had the site built. I’m a big fan of entrepreneurs, especially when they’re very open minded and truly value others’ opinions and suggestions.
But besides hooking Rob up with some sweet swag, and offering up a bunch of thoughts to the pickURgift crew, I wasn’t completely done yet. No way, no how!
This wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun if I was only the gift giver, though. So Rob sent me a number of gift suggestions too!
I’m in desperate need of some new headphones for my Xbox 360, so I was happy to see a pair of Red Samurai ones on my list!
I’ve also been meaning to pick up the new Injustice game, ever since playing it with my nephew a few weeks back. It’s your standard Mortal Kombat-type fighting game, except all the characters are superheroes and villains from the DC Universe. Woot!
After filling out my info, I sat by the mailbox eagerly awaiting my gifts! Apparently the interent still hasn’t implemented instantaneous delivery. Yet.
Thankfully, Rob sent things pretty quickly, because I had my items within a few days! I just couldn’t wait to try on the headphones, plop Injustice into the Xbox 360 and start duking it out between Batman and Superman!
Now while you go check out PickUrGift for yourself and give it a go, I’m going to get back to kicking Superman’s butt.
Oh, and of course you can all feel free to buy me loads and loads of gifts. I’ll be more than happy to help you test out your gift-giving abilities!
Just thought I would share a recent experience… We just had a yard sale and as we were putting out the items, I noticed a necklace. A nice pearl Silpada necklace, that I had bought a few years back for my wife. She said she loved it then. Never wore it and it ended up in a yard sale. I don’t blame her…. I thought it was a great gift, obviously I was wrong. I Just recently used pickURgift.com to give her a gift and she chose a Nike running fanny pack. She now uses it almost daily and it was about $ 180 less expensive the the necklace I thought she would love.
This is a really good idea. I HATE trying to figure out what to buy people, it drives me crazy. I’d really like to try this, thanks for the review!
this seems to me more of a mans site than for women,most women know their man well enough to know what he likes or doesn’t like,,,interesting for sure,,id drather see my poor husband out hunting for the right gift for me ,usually he does okay,,he has had a few bombs that weren’t too good,,he always says he likes my gift to him,or he lies an says he likes my gift to him,,,,
That’s very useful, helpful site for all