If you're not familiar with Wrappyet, you will be!
Wrappis a social gifting service that enables friend-to-friend marketing on behalf of brands locally or globally.
After reading an article about Wrapp on BrandChannel.com, I downloaded the free app to my iPhone and tried it out by sending some free birthday gift cards to a few friends on Facebook. I must admit, it was pretty cool!
According to BrandChannel, here's how Wrappworks: "The Wrapp mobile gift card and retail app lets retailers drive traffic to online and physical stores starting with small amounts, $5 to $15, that users get for free. Then, using Facebook and the mobile app, people can give their Facebook friends those free gift cards, a notification they’ve received a gift card is posted to that friend’s wall, and others can see it and contribute more money if they wish."
Following my brief experiment, I found sharing gift cards through Wrapp even easier than it sounds. What I haven't experienced yet is the redemption side of the offer. I'll have to wait until one of my friends uses their digital gift card before passing final judgment, but so far I'm intrigued.
For a company that wants to promote sampling, this is a great way to get small gift cards into the hands of targeted consumers. After all, who knows what a consumer wants more than his/her friends? Also, by allowing friends to increase the value of the gift card on Facebook, the card can quickly grow from a small individual gift into a very large group gift with each friend adding only a few dollars to the total.
As a consumer, I see tremendous value to the Wrapp gift card distribution model. However, as a retailer, I think the greatest opportunity will be for those who jump on the bandwagon early. As more and more brands join the fold, share for early adopters is likely to wane due to increased competition, unless you're a retailer willing to continuously increase the size of the free offer (or you have the market cornered).
There are other similar social media gift card distribution models around Europe and Asia, but this is the first one really trying to gain a foothold in the U.S.
I expect to use Wrapp frequently, and already have in just the past 20 minutes!
**The opinions shared on this blog are solely those of its author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Goodwill of Greater Washington, its affiliates or supporters.
