Give the gifts your friends will really love with Shareagift

I have a little quiz for you. Picture the scene for a minute if you will…

It’s Boxing Day. You’ve eaten 439 Elizabeth Shaw mints, drunk 14 glasses of sherry, and are collapsed on the sofa. Your Christmas presents are sat in a pile at your feet. Do you think to yourself:

A. What a lovely collection of thoughtful yet practical gifts!

B. What a bunch of crap. Why do my family hate me so?

C. It’s lovely that everyone has bought me a present, but I do wish I just had that camera I really wanted instead of these 27 Boots gift sets.

Let’s find out what your answers mean:

Mostly As: You lucky thing you! Just don’t go bragging about it, or you will become one of those smug, happy people that everyone hates.

Mostly Bs: I don’t know why they hate you. What have you done? Did you accidentally run over the family dog? If so then you should probably be grateful they bought you anything at all.

Mostly Cs: Damn Boots and their over-packaged Christmas nonsense. Wouldn’t it be great if instead there was some way to swap all of these small and pointless gifts for something you really wanted?

WELL THERE IS!!

TADA!!

The answer is Shareagift. If you wish your friends and family would club together to get you a great gift, or if you want to collect money for any sort of occasion, then Shareagift is just what you need.

Shareagift is one of those simple yet brilliant ideas that makes you pull a slightly disappointed face because you wish you had thought of it first. As it says on its homepage it’s about buying gifts with friends – a virtual whip round if you will. It works for Christmas, birthdays, weddings, christenings, fundraising, parties, work gifts – you name it, you can share it.

There are two ways to do it. The first is simply to pick an existing product from the shop. There are all kinds of options, from clutch bags to safaris, so plenty to get your imagination going.

Let’s say for instance that I wanted to buy Belle an iPad mini for Christmas.

An iPad mini normally costs nearly £300 so there’s no way I could afford to splash out on such a treat on my own. I could call up everyone Belle knows, tell them how much she wants an iPad mini of her very own, and suggest they chip in, but how much of a faff is that?? Shareagift dispenses with said faff by letting you set up what is basically a fundraising page, collecting contributions for the gift of your choice all in one place.

Pretty neat right?

The other option is to upload your own gift idea and simply collect funds into a Paypal account. Perhaps you want to club together and contribute towards the cost of a friend’s honeymoon, have all of your friends chip in for a party, or maybe you want to raise money for a charity or project – whatever you want the cash for, Shareagift makes it easy to manage everyone’s money. (Be aware when you do this option that even though Shareagift don’t charge you, Paypal do take a percentage from any transfers, so make sure you factor this in and don’t end up out of pocket.)

Shareagift is perfect for clubbing together for new parents too. I bought Bee’s pushchair from a car boot sale for £10, but I appreciate that some people prefer to have something a little less shabby chic. Pushchairs are expensive though, so make a great joint present. As an extra incentive, anyone using the site to buy a Bugaboo from the store during October will get ￡20 of baby vouchers absolutely free!

 

What do you think of the idea? If you could get your friends to club together for a gift for you, what would it be?