Gifting Made Easy With Indian Gift Portal (Igp.Com)

When it comes to gifting, I deliberate way too much!

In fact, I don’t really think I have a “gifting style” – which makes it hard for me to pick gifts for people. Sometimes, I’ll walk past a store, look at something and say, “hey, that t-shirt would be a great gift for my brother,” even though his birthday is 10 months away. I’d buy it on the spot and wait for the perfect opportunity to give it to him.

At other times, I’ll know weeks in advance that I have to attend a wedding, yet be agonizing over what to gift them until the night before.

Yet another scenario that crops up is the whole “practicality” angle. “Sure, I can get them a lamp – but who uses lamps in India? How about chocolates – nah… that doesn’t make for a memorable gift, does it?”

You see where I’m going with this?

ABOUT IGP

I came across IGP (Indian Gifts Portal) and decided to try it out. Apparently, it is one of India’s largest gifting portals that provides a curation of cakes, flowers and gifts. They don’t only deliver to India, but to 90 countries across the globe! Their curation, logistics and technology attempts to end gift giving woes – whether your loved one lives in the same house as you do, or a million miles away.

Here’s how it works:

http://www.igp.com/how-it-works

WHAT THEY OFFER

IGP provides gifting options in over 190 product categories, including perishables, toys and games, apparel and home, dry fruits, chocolates, flowers and cakes, among others. You can choose the gift based on a HUGE range of parameters – from who the recipient is, their personality, age, your relationship with them, the occasion, product category and price.

The list of items on their website is exhaustive, to say the least. Take for example, home furnishings. It features home decor, kitchen gifts, gifts for kids, stationary, posters, paintings and plants – all classified into ‘modest’ and ‘premium’ to suit your budget. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

WHAT I BOUGHT

Have you ever tried to get a cake or flowers delivered to someone in another city? I tried getting flowers delivered to my mom in Goa a few years ago, and it wasn’t easy. In the end, I just got a friend to do it for me. So this time, I decided to order something for myself, to test it out before I can entrust IGP with delivering something to someone special, on time and just the way I want it.

I ordered this pair of earrings and a ring (I loooove rings!). I basically browsed through the site for so long, looking for something that I just HAD to have. But nothing was catching my eye, and I started feeling like nothing ever would. I then gave up, and clicked on the first two products I saw and viola – that’s how these two gorgeous things turned up at my doorstep!

I love the earrings more than the ring – a rare occurrence in my life, at least! It’s so dressy, yet simple and dangly, but not long. Absolutely can’t wait to wear them and click a zillion Instagram photos!

When I showed this ring to my friends, all of them wanted it! And how could they not? Its adorable! Apart from the fact that it’s sparkly, which is always a win in my books, the turtles head, tail and legs move!!!

It came to me in plastic wrapped, pink boxes that’s idea for gifting as it is! The shipment reached me on time – within 3 working days.

WHAT I LOVED

The ‘Under 999’ section – While the website has a filter for price, the ‘Under 999’ Section had a better selection. In general, the products range from Rs. 200 to over Rs. 8000, and rather than scrolling all the way to the Rs. 1000 range, this handy portion gives a visitor a good mix of products that are budget friendly.

The sheer variety of choice – The gifting options are seemingly endless, even after filtering down your search. This could be a good thing, if you have time to keep clicking ‘next page.’ I was intrigued for some time and kept going ahead, but I got bored after a while. Its a double-edged sword, really.

The customer service – After I placed my order, I went back on the site the next day to browse some more. I selected a product, went to check out and for some reason exited the site and closed the tab. I was surprised to get a call from someone at IGP almost instantly, asking if I have tried ordering something and offered help if I was facing a problem at check out. I’ve never experienced this on any other site and it was quite a surprise.

Recipient Filters – Speeds up the selection process by giving you appropriate gift options for every recipient.

WHAT COULD BE IMPROVED

Too many filters – While providing options is a good thing, in my opinion, IGP provides 10x more than needed – which would still be acceptable if the filters actually gave me appropriate results. For example, the filters I played with were –

Recipient – girlfriend

Age – 20-50 years

Occasion – Congratulations

Personality – loves cooking

The result – A Virat Kohli cushion and flowers with chocolates. None of these are relevant to what I’m looking for.

Many important elements aren’t clickable – While the website and email provide all the necessary information, many of the clickable buttons lead me nowhere. For example, the ‘Track Order’ button in the confirmation email…

…and a lot of elements on the website as well. This entire section of the website neither told me anything, nor took me anywhere when clicked. It contributed to the clutter and overdose of (uninformative) content present on the site. I can say the same for the full screen of content below the ‘More about IGP.com’ portion of the site that was overloaded with text, that I’m sure no one reads.

Check out process – Could be much more efficient and painless for a first time visitor on the website.