Scituate Mass. based GiftsOnTime has just launched in beta and will never let you forget celebrating any occasion by allowing you to schedule gifts far in advance. GiftsOnTime, the leading appreciation management platform for professional service providers, allows you to select and schedule client gifts - celebrating any occasion - to be delivered throughout the year.
Just last week the company announced a partnership with San-Diego based Provide Commerce Inc., which will supply merchandise from its portfolio of websites. Provide Commerce marketplace brands include ProFlowers, RedEnvelope, Shari's Berries, and Cherry Moon Farms. In addition to this partnership GiftsOnTime has established a partnership with Wine.com, the leading online wine store.
This concept sounds very interesting and I had the opportunity to interview the CEO Ron Orleans. Check out our convo below:
BostInnovation: How does GiftsOnTime work?
Ron Orleans: GiftsOnTime.com is a web-based application designed to help companies manage both their client and employee gift giving programs. For most companies, gift giving is simply an unstructured and ad hoc process. The real problem with gift giving lies in the fact that the gifting occasions occur at many different points across the calendar year. Tracking and managing all those different gift giving dates ultimately becomes cumbersome and unsustainable. However, with GiftsOnTime.com, companies – and individuals for that matter – will have a single resource to mange all their annual gift giving needs in a very short period of time.
GiftsOnTime.com allows its customers to populate our program with a list of clients, contacts, employees, friends or family members. From this list they can select gifts to be sent to any contact for up to one year in advance. The beauty of our process is that you can make all your gift selections for the upcoming year at one sitting – this ability to “Future Gift” is new and unique to the web.
BostInno: Do you keep an inventory of products or do you order as needed?
Orleans: Currently, there are 5 gift categories: Wine, Flowers, Candies & Cookies, Gifts Basket and Other Gifts, each category has a total of 12 different gifts.
We have partnered with two major fulfillment vendors to handle all our product and delivery requirements. Wine.com handles all of our wine orders and Provide Commerce (Proflowers, Shari’s Berries, Cherry Moon Farm and Red Envelope) handles all our other gift category fulfillment needs.
BostInno: How does GiftsOnTime manage the challenge of the security of accessing client's contact databases? What systems or policies do you have in place to assure clients and end clients that the information stays safe and GiftsOnTime handles it with integrity?
Orleans: From the very beginning we have taken the issue of security very seriously. In building our platform, security was always our number one priority. We are MGL 201 CMR 17 compliant, as well as compliant with all PCI standards. We use VeriSign True 128-bit Extended Validation SSL technology. GiftsOnTime.com is hosted in a secure server environment that uses advanced state of the art technology to prevent intruders and others from having access or the ability to interfere with our customers' information. Lastly, we have engaged Kroll OnTrack, one of the worlds leading security consulting firms, to perform an extensive security assessment and audit. We are committed to providing a website that is safe, secure and reliable for our customers.
BostInno: How long do you store customer information? ie. If a customer doesn't order a gift for 6 months, do you purge the information of their clients?
Orleans: The customer has control over the retention of information. GiftsOnTime.com does not automatically delete any customer information. In fact, for customers who have purchased gifts, a gift history is maintained for as long as he or she chooses. We believe this Order History is a valuable tool when reviewing gift choices for the following year. The ability to have a record of what you have given in the past is very helpful in determining what to give now.
BostInno: What is the pricing structure of your service? Is it pay-per-gift or is there an initial overall fee?
Orleans: There is no initial fee or cost of any kind to sign up and be a GiftsOnTime.com customer. The service we provide is very helpful and there are many valuable tools that customers can use without any financial commitment. For instance, there is a tool in our program that will allow our customers to instantly export their contact list to a separate Outlook calendar that will show the Birthdate, contact information, and if applicable the gift that was sent to the contact. This allows our customers to have desktop access to all their contacts’ basic information in a familiar format.
BostInno: Although you're still in beta, which are the most popular products?
Orleans: We have seen that our wine gifts are a very popular with our corporate customers. Conversely, the Candies and Cookies gifts appeal to a broader age range, while Flowers seem to appeal to our family and friends gifting customers. One of the fun things that we did as a company was to purchase all the gifts we offer – it was like the holiday season had arrived in mid summer. I especially remember the Cheesecake Trio & the Hand-Dipped Strawberries…needed to go on a diet after that.
BostInno: How many companies do you have using GiftsOnTime right now?
Orleans: As you noted, we are in the Beta test stage now and our Beta group is approximately 10 corporate customers. In addition, we have approximately 10 Beta test individuals. However, we continue to receive exceptional interest in our service when we socialize the idea with prospective customers.
While both a challenge and an opportunity, our application has strong relevance for several very distinct markets. We have the traditional corporate client gifting market, but have also generated great interest in the Human Resource market. For example, by using GiftsOnTime.com to track employees’ anniversaries and birthdays, business owners now have a powerful tool to manage their employee appreciation programs.
BostInno: Though it's still early, what seems to be the average dollar purchase?
Orleans: In selecting our gifts we tried to create a price range across the five categories that would appeal to a wide range of customers. For instance in our Candy & Cookies category the prices range from $29.99 to $59.99; in our wine category the prices are slightly higher ranging from $41.99 to $179.99. Taken together, the average gift price is around $50.00.
BostInno: Same token, what is the quantity/volume of gifts ordered, or what do you project it will be?
Orleans: Currently our Beta test group is averaging approximately 30- 35 gifts per year, based on a contact list of 300 names. It is not anticipated that everyone on the list will receive a gift each year; in fact, the program is designed to display a list of our customers entire contacts and from this list the customer selects gifts to be sent only to their best and most important clients and contacts.
Want to learn more about GiftsOnTime? Follow them on Twitter.
