This summer we’re working with OwlSpark, a 90-day summer accelerator at Rice University.  OwlSpark has provided us with a lot of opportunities and resources that we’re really grateful for, including daily lectures from successful entrepreneurs, mentors, and of course, office space.  To learn more about OwlSpark and some of their other companies, visit their website at www.owlspark.com.  We’ll see you at Pitch Day!

Happy Gifting,

CheckedTwice

Did you see us featured on Good Morning America?! They did a segment on recent trends toward families using holiday gift registries to manage gift giving. GMA wanted to know: are they efficient.. or are they rude? Do they help prevent re-gifting and bad gift situations or do they fly in the face of etiquette? They shared some information from a study at Harvard Business School and got some feedback from people on the street and online.

The answer? Registering for gifts rocks! Well, we may be slightly biased- but a lot of people agree!

The results of a series of studies at HBS revealed that gift recipients perceived gifts as more thoughtful when they were given from a wishlist.

They found, “gift recipients are more appreciative of gifts they explicitly request than those they do not. In contrast, gift givers assume that both solicited and unsolicited gifts will be equally appreciated. At the root of this dilemma is a difference of opinion about what purchasing an unsolicited gift signals: gift givers expect unsolicited gifts will be considered more thoughtful and considerate by their intended recipients than is actually the case.”

So what do they mean? That oftentimes a short cut to gift-giving happiness lies in registering for gifts you’d like to receive or buying gifts for others from their own wishlists. Beyond the benefit of knowing that the recipient will love the gift, there are additional benefits to using a registry like saving time and money. Registries mean less time spent researching and tracking down the perfect gift since you’ll know exactly what they want. And with a full picture of the desired gifts of the entire family, it is easier to meet your budget for the season as a whole.

While undoubtedly some people will be resistant to move to the registry model for family gifting occasions, the time savings and assuredness of a perfect gift are enough for many people to make the shift. When you do, we hope you’ll use CheckedTwice!

To see our segment on Good Morning America, click here. To read more about the results of the Harvard Business School studies on gifting, click here. And to sign up to use CheckedTwice as a family gift registry for the upcoming holiday season, click here. Happy Gifting!

We are thrilled to be mentioned in the article on Christmas gift registries. As a loyal reader of The New York Times myself, I am really proud to see our name in the paper.

In the article, author Austin Considine mentions how online gift registries like CheckedTwice have made the gift giving process during the holiday season easier.  Considine mentioned a few other registries as well, including ones that are specific to large retail stores.

So you might be wondering – why CheckedTwice?  What makes CheckedTwice different from the other registries listed, like the Nordstrom registry?  Why choose CheckedTwice instead?

Here are a few reasons why CheckedTwice’s unique system is perfect for your family:

1. CheckedTwice isn’t about shopping for you, it’s about shopping for them.

Holiday shopping is stressful, but usually not because you’re worried about what you want.  Instead, it’s because you don’t know what to buy for other people, especially your picky sister-in-law or your 10-year old niece (who is already way cooler than you).  CheckedTwice makes it really easy for you to sign up your whole family and connect them on one site.  Accessing everyone’s wish list in your family is simple, and everyone can coordinate to know who’s buying what for whom.  Unlike other gifting sites that focus on what you want, CheckedTwice is focused on what they want – so you know exactly what to get your mother, your father, your sister, your uncle, and so on by just using one site.

2. CheckedTwice lets you add gifts from any online retailer. 

Unlike Amazon Wish list or Nordstrom’s gift registry, CheckedTwice lets you add products to your wish list from any online retailer, increasing your range of gifting options significantly.

3. CheckedTwice is full of surprises!

One of CheckedTwice’s unique features is the ability to add a Surprise Gift to someone else’s list.  The rest of the family will be able to see your surprise, but the recipient won’t.  For users who are worried that online gift registries are taking the fun out of  the holiday season, no worries – CheckedTwice still keeps all the fun secrets and surprises of Christmas.

4. CheckedTwice is visually organized.

With our pin board layout, it becomes very easy to see exactly what everyone wants and organize your own list as well. You can view another family member’s list with just one click, instead of fishing through a sea of archived emails.  Once you’re in their list, our wish list wall makes it very easy to see exactly what products they want right away, instead of having to research them individually.  This eye-catching layout makes you wonder why you were ever even trying to coordinate using Google Spreadsheets.

5. CheckedTwice is more than just Christmas.

CheckedTwice isn’t just focused on holiday shopping. Instead, it emphasizes what we think is more important – connecting the family.  Once your family is all signed up for CheckedTwice, every gift giving event – whether it be birthdays, weddings, Mother’s day, or so on – can include the whole family again. Reconnecting the family just became that much easier – and remember, it’s also totally free!

Once again, we’re very excited to be in The New York Times. To see the article, click here, and don’t forget to sign your family up!

Happy gifting!

-CheckedTwice

We’re really excited to announce that we’ve been featured in LifeHacker!  I use LifeHacker all the time to find organizational tips and applications, so I think CheckedTwice fits in really well on the site.

The LifeHacker article illustrates all of CheckedTwice’s best features – its user friendliness, flexibility, and versatility, making it exactly as LifeHacker defined it: universal.  Because CheckedTwice is able to add gifts from all online retailers, you can essentially grab products off the shelves from any store and add them to a single, universal shopping cart.

We wanted to also mention one aspect that LifeHacker didn’t touch on as much- CheckedTwice is family-oriented.  By being able to see everyone in your family’s wishlist all on one site, we make it really easy to do all your family’s shopping at once. Of course, LifeHacker did point out one of our favorite key features – it’s free!

We want to thank LifeHacker for featuring us on their site (which can be viewed here), allowing us to reach out to more families and give them the organizational tools they need. We hope you give CheckedTwice a try and sign up your whole family for an improved gifting experience!

Happy Shopping,

CheckedTwice

Apartment Therapy is one of our favorite sites – so imagine our joy at being mentioned in a post! If you’re not familiar with them, it was started in 2003 as an email newsletter as its founder, Maxwell Ryan, traveled by scooter to his client’s homes as an “apartment therapist” to help them make their spaces “beautiful, organized, and healthy”.  Their mission of “Helping people make their homes more beautiful, organized and healthy by connecting them to a wealth of resources, ideas and community online,” has struck a chord as they are now the largest independent website dedicated to the home.

After being introduced to CheckedTwice by a family member, Micky Howl gave us a glowing write-up after comparing us with other registry sites that are available on the web. Citing us for our ease-of-use, advanced capabilities, and lack of irritating advertisements, we received high marks. She specifically liked the way we integrate so easily with Etsy – a great source for handmade gifts that complement Apartment Therapy’s style. Not only do we work well with Etsy – but a gift from anywhere on the web can be added to our wishlists by copying and pasting its URL. Beyond that, even offline gifts can be added. The possibilities are endless!

To read their post, please click here. Thanks, Apartment Therapy, for including us on your fantastic site and keep up the great work!