HOLIDAY
GIFT GUIDE
HUFFINGTON
11.18.12
Enter
Q&A
one, and presenting it with style.
That resonated with me, because
we have so much stress around
buying gifts. Someone spends a
certain amount on you, you want
to buy something similarly priced
for them. It has become transactional, and we’ve lost the emotional aspects, the ritual.
Why do you think it’s resonating with
people? Our customers tell us that
Wantful resonates with them because it takes into account the
emotional aspects of gift giving.
There’s more to a Wantful gift
than just getting a product. They
get the surprise of the concept,
then they get the pleasure of making their own selection, then they
receive it and get to know more
about the story behind the product. There’s a whole process to it.
For the person buying the gift, it’s
great because it doesn’t take long
to create a really thoughtful and
successful gift for someone and
make it really personal. We curate
our product selection very carefully, so our customer is confident
they’re giving something special.
One indicator of how well this
works always surprises people
who work in retail: Our return
rates are close to zero.
How do you choose the products you’re
going to feature? As a starting point,
we focus on well-designed, quality products, whatever the price
point. If it’s not exceptional in
some way, or if it’s the same
thing you see on shelves at every store, we're going to look for
When we asked
one woman why she hadn’t
made her selection yet,
she said, ‘Until I choose,
they’re all mine.’”
something better. That’s part of
what’s important in a gift: You
want to give something that’s
unique, and that has a story behind it. We know our customers
don’t have much loyalty to the
cheap and trendy thing. They’re
looking for products of substance. We ask ourselves, why is
this special? Why is this olive
oil different? We have free rein
to assort whichever products
we think are worth highlighting,
however specialized.