Trendslate recently spoke with Kapil Kale one of the three founders of Giftrocket. Founded by Nicolas Baum, Jonathan Pines, and Kapil Kale in San Francisco, this team is making a better gift card by enabling consumers to create and send a gift card to anyone for any merchant. Not bad considering that typical gift cards wind up either lost, collecting dust, or under utilized with a fraction of the remaining value left over after use. The company was conceived after Kapil and team came across a gift card from one of their high school graduations that they had received as a gift.

Giftrocket is launching some enhancements to the platform based on consumer feedback. Notably, consumers really appreciated the convenience but wanted to be able to provide a more personal experience. Consumers will now be able to select a design and print out the gift certificate to personally deliver it to the recipient. Additionally, one advantage of Giftrocket is that they are now enabling recipients to redeem the value of the Giftrocket gift certificate upfront. That way consumers can have the cash on hand and spend it on whatever they want. Based on some recent research by the team, most gift cards for sale online are ultimately going for less than face value. More often than not consumers that receive traditional gift certificates are not necessarily pleased with the merchant that their friend or family member chose.

Customer acquisition for any startup is challenging but Giftrocket is tackling this challenge head on. Specifically, they offer small businesses and easy and free way to provide and sell gift certificates to their consumer bases. Giftrocket mentioned that small businesses typically cannot afford the fees and infrastructure necessary for traditional gift card programs. The other customer acquisition strategy that has provided traction is the conversion of Giftrocket recipients into Giftrocket customers.

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