A personal touch
4 min read . Updated: 17 Dec 2013, 07:35 PM IST
PremiumTake the help of customized gifting websites to make your presents a super hit among friends and family
OTHERS :
You have a huge family and no time to buy gifts for them. Don’t worry, you are not alone. In a survey released in November by Groupon APAC (Asia Pacific), a group buying website, 82% of Indians confessed to shopping online for holiday gifts. The Holiday Season Survey was carried out online from 31 October-11 November in 12 APAC markets, and included 832 respondents from India.
“Personalized gifts, be it an experience or a product, are the best gift you can give, and so have become a big trend in online buys," says Ankur Warikoo, chief executive officer of Groupon India. But instead of buying the same humdrum mug sets, picture collages or other boring items, get a bit more personal.
Many e-commerce companies in India—Myntra, for example—got their start with customization, and today there are a number of businesses online where you can get some unique, personalized presents for your spouse, child or parents.
A stamp with her face
Remind her of a special day by gifting a stamp with her face on it and finding original Indian currency that has the date as its serial number. Giftisaha will not only print a postage stamp of your loved one but also add prominent stamps from the year they were born in on a 10 note whose serial number matches your special date. To add to it all, expect a personalized poem in the package, which will be delivered in under a week.
1,515
Have a pile of audio cassettes that your partner doesn’t want to let go of? Hit two birds with one stone with the help of Dhoop, which will convert these into a lamp. Just order on their Facebook page. If you are in Mumbai, drop off the cassettes at their store; if not, courier the cassettes to them. You will get a beautiful retro lamp in a week’s time.
2,200 for the lamp (150 extra for shipping)
Remember those painstaking days when you used to create cassettes with songs you and your partner loved? Saregama India Ltd takes you back to that era with the offer of a customized CD. You can choose from their archives of over 100,000 songs of popular, Hindustani and Carnatic classical, ‘bhajans’, ‘ghazals’ and folk songs. Once you choose the songs, add a catchy title to the CD, and a cover design, and they will ship it anywhere in India.
199 for 40 MP3 songs or 275 for an audio CD of 76 minutes
Your own newspaper
Always wanted to make headlines? Well, you can now gift these. Upload a picture on the website, enter the name of a newspaper, the print date, the headline and the one article about you. The rest of the articles will be from real newspapers to give it that authentic touch. The printed newspaper can be folded like a real paper or framed, depending on how you want it. The newspaper is only the front page, 14x22 inches.
499 for two copies of the newspaper
Name a real star after your loved one. This gift includes a unique star somewhere in the galaxy named and registered with the Intergalactic Star Database in the UK. The gift pack will come complete with registration details, a star coordinates certificate and a guide to astronomy.
1,750
Meant for someone quirky, this is a caricature to depict someone as Batman, Superman or Spider- Man.
The magnet caricature will be produced by a professional artist from the multiple pictures you will have to send in.
Once the caricature is done, you can select any theme and complete the design.
1,049
A personal poem
Once the poem is composed, you can ask for email-only delivery or get it printed, framed and delivered at someone’s doorstep.
2,200 onwards per poem
Personalized jewellery
For a handmade quirky piece of craft, head to Biigii’s Little Shop on Facebook. Run by Bhuvi Gupta, a student at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, the shop offers customized beaded earrings, necklaces, paper clay brooches and pendants, and occasion jewellery. She needs one-three weeks to understand and create your requirement and delivers the jewellery in pouches made from recycled material.
Biigii’s Little Shop, on Facebook.com
300-1,000 for designer jewellery
Engraved Nokia Lumia
Starting 11,289, including the phone, for the cheapest model
Let roses do the talking for you. Name a unique variety of rose after your loved one. The romantic gift comes in a box with a special set of rose seeds which are named after your loved one and registered with The Amore Rose Registry, a large grower of rose cultivars in the UK. These seeds can be grown into bushes and looked up to with a sigh.
1,490
How about creating a comic book around the star of your life? For a few thousand rupees, husband and wife Arijit Gupta and Chai Gake Law create a comic story of your life, complete with binding and packaging. Once a rough estimate is agreed upon, you need to send details, stories about the persons involved, pictures as well as preferences. This means that you need to take out time as a customer to Skype with them too. They send you a story and if you agree on the storyboard and character sketches, they go ahead and create it with text, images, inking and colouring. Comics are usually hand-delivered, though they are willing to post it if you stay outside their city.
Comicstrippers, on Facebook.com
30,000 for a 20-page comic book, or 7,000 for a comic strip
