Because Gifting Was Meant to be Personal

Thanks Pam!  Has anyone else seen this app?  “Oh my gosh!”  That is the reaction I am looking for when I give a gift.  And with Penless, I get that all the time.

Modern gift giving has become a series of impersonal actions such as a gift card and the e-card.  Sure, sometimes they are really convenient, but is it memorable?  I cannot even remember who gave that department store gift card or the restaurant gift card; and sometimes I even lose the gift card before I get a chance to use it.  Once I do use it, it is gone.  And then what?  Then there is the other side of it with all the work there was to getting a gift or shopping to give a gift to someone else.  Last year I got a sweater for my birthday.  Yep, it was nothing fancy, but it was so nice.  And I love it.  I actually knew what it was before I got it because my sister was nice enough to call.  She is in New York, and I am California, so it is not always easy to know what the other needs.  But the fact was she did call me about what I wanted for a birthday gift.  The thing was though, she did not just call once, she called eight times, and texted me at least twice with a picture of the winning sweater.  How nice, but what a hassle for her and me.  She called about what I wanted.  Then she called me back about my size.  Then she called me back about what colors I might like.  Then she called me about the design on the front.  The first one she showed me was paisley, the next one was plaid.  I liked the plaid, but I felt bad that she was shopping for me at all, and then I felt bad she was spending so much time shopping.  Sometimes I wish she would just send me the gift card of some sort or risk buying the sweater that does not fit or I do not like.  What a conundrum.  Also, when I went shopping to buy a workout shirt for her, I felt guilty about all the calls she made, so I called her.  I had to even if I did not want to.  In fact, I called her only seven times.  And I still am not sure I got her what she wanted.

This is why I think modern gift giving is so impersonal.  I think for all the benefits of social media; we might have lost some of the intentionality that comes from gifting one on one.  When I was small, I remember we would get a few bucks from our parents and walk the isles of a department store looking for something special on Christmas for another family member.  It was always the thought that counted, but I also think maybe we knew the other person a little better because we had to. We had to think about it in advance.  We needed look for signs that they wanted something and often they would send us signs because they knew we were looking for a sign.  Does that make sense?  Today, I found a great app and can send that subtle or not so subtle sign the Penless way.  It is a synch to give or get the right gift every time.

Before Penless, I was barely venturing into any department store beyond what I needed to do to get that gift card.  So much of my shopping prior to downloading Penless was within about a four-foot radius of the check stands at the mall.  If you were a store manager and you want me to see some of your merchandise, that was all you had to work with.  About four cubic feet of store.  And I was just like most of my friends.  It wasn’t that I did not want to shop, I just was not good at it.  Some people are good at shopping and some people love to shop.

Also, I was usually right in and right out.  There was no dillydallying or pretending I was looking for something.  Gift cards are so politically correct these days, but for many people feel short changed by a gift card.  It had become practically an addiction to me.  One time I even had a nightmare that I was headed off to a friend’s birthday party and the world had run out of plastic for making gift cards.  What to do, what to do?  I awoke in a cold sweat and the only way I could get back to sleep was by putting a few gift cards under my pillow.

Now I still am like my friends or rather they are like me. I have them all on Penless now and the result has been fantastic.  My friends have taken pictures and images off the web of all sorts of things they want and need.  I am happy to share some items with them and they always share items with me.  In fact, sometimes it is just fun to scroll through the different wish lists to see what someone wants. The Penless app is designed to improve the gifting and shopping experience by making it easier.  It makes it easy to get that quick picture in a store of an item you want.  It also makes it easy to search and store things from the web.  If any of you out there are like I use to be, give the Penless app a whirl, and watch your gifting go to the next level.  You will be glad you did.