Digital gifting the sweetest option this Diwali

As appeared in the Times of India on 28 October 2016 by TNN

Times of India, TOI, Woohoo, Qwikcilver

Digital gift cards, digital meal passes, digital medical and travel vouchers have replaced traditional options with both individuals and corporates taking to these new-age choices with gusto this Deepavali.
According to observers, the city stands fourth in the country when it comes to digital gifting, after Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, and the sector is moving ahead at a fast pace.Speaking about the most availed gifting options, experts for Hyderabadis clothing is top priority, followed by personal accessories and electronics. In other major cities, clothing is third or fourth on the list. “While the average cost of a gift is around Rs 2,000 at the individual level, for companies the average hovers around Rs 5,000,” said Ramki Gaddipati, co-founder, Zeta, a business-to-business-only company that has sold nearly 15,000 gift cards this season.

“All major players in the market are doing very well, like Sodexo, Udio, Zeta and us. All these vouchers have their own USPs, it is more of a matter of personal choice, which an employee or an employer prefers,” said Ankush Gupta co-founder of Cinqo, a digital payments solution company.

In the twin cities there are more than 500 exclusive brand outlets with at least 150 of them making gift cards available. “The figure is higher when compared to Delhi or Mumbai and is at par with Bangalore,” said Pratap T P, co-founder and CMO, Qwikcilver, an end-to-end gift card and stored-value-card solutions company.

While there are gifting options available in categories like sportswear, hospitality, home furnishing, apparel, health and beauty, travel, electronics and baby products, there are also cards which are not brand exclusive and can be used without restrictions.

“Currently there are more than 100 companies in Hyderabad which have been availing these facilities from across players.The figure is expected to grow,” said Smeet Modi, co-founder of Cinqo.

Pratap T P said one of the key reasons for digital gifting catching on at such a quick pace in the city is the influx of NRI professionals who have been exposed to the concept of gift cards. “They bring back the concept and hence Hyderabad is adapting at a faster pace than other cities,” he said.

Individuals who are opting for the digital vouchers meanwhile say its a comfortable solution.

“I wanted to gift something to a fellow colleague as a token of thanks but wasn’t sure what he would prefer. An apparel brand gift card seemed like a perfect option. Its easy to gift and accept,” said P Vaibhav, a pharma company executive.

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Diwali Gifting Guide: Celebrate the Festival of Lights

Diwali remains one of the most important festivals in the Hindu calendar and the festival is celebrated over a period of 5 days. From lighting lamps or diyas, bursting crackers and relishing sweet delights, praying to goddess Lakshmi and lord Ganesh, this auspicious festival keeps people on their toes throughout. During this festival of joy, people choose to gift their near and dear ones as well. It’s no surprise that year after year, you tend to fall short of ideas to buy gifts for Diwali. Sweets, jewellery, figurines are passé, that’s what you’ve been giving away as Diwali gifts all these years. Care to gift something different this Diwali?

diwali, deepavali, gifting, gift cards, gift vouchers

Buy a Diwali Gift Card from Woohoo

Do you want to send the sweetest warm wish this Diwali? With the festival of lights just around the corner, you are looking for a gift that can really make an impression for sure. Take a look at the gift card options at Woohoo. The perfect Diwali gift for your spouse, children, parents, in-laws or friends does not have to be hard to find. Based on their interest, you can purchase a gift card online that will delight them. For instance, if your wife is a movie buff, she’d love to be treated with a PVR cinemas gift card that lets her watch all the upcoming flicks with her best friends. She might even enjoy a shopping spree from her cozy couch with a Myntra gift card. Who said you can’t please your in-laws easily? Buy them a travel and tours gift card at Woohoo and send them on a journey of their lifetime to a destination of their choice. And of course, there is a wide range of options for friends – from restaurant gift cards, Prestige smart kitchen gift cards for the newlyweds.

Confused for Choice?

There’s no doubt the choice for gifts is immense at Woohoo. While buying something straight off your dear one’s wish list is the safest strategy, we think that you can consider their circumstances and their personality too. If they have moved to a new home and it needs decorating, home décor is the right choice. If your recipient is elegant and flamboyant, shopping would surely be on her mind. Most importantly, keep in mind that the best gifts are not always the most expensive, but the ones that mean a lot to the recipient. Find a gift that means a lot this Diwali!

 

Note: The image is from happydeepavali2015.com. The copyright vests with respective copyright holders.

(Post updated on 28 Oct 2016)

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Gift cards now come loaded with features

As appeared in the Business Standard on 23 October 2016 by Priya Nair

Business Standard__________________________________________________________________________

You received a gift card worth Rs 5,000 for Diwali last year, but could spend only Rs 4,500 because the brand was not to your liking. The card is no longer valid. While you did not lose money, inability to use the gift amount can rankle. Now, you can trade or sell gift cards that you have no use for, provided they are still valid.

“On an average, there is a breakage (the unused amount) of three-four per cent on prepaid cards like gift cards because these cannot be reloaded. This happens because sometimes the article you want to buy may fall short of the card limit. In some cases, the retailer may be unwilling to swipe the card below a certain amount. In such a case, too, you cannot use the card,” says Ramki Gaddipati, Co-founder of Zeta, a company that offers online employee benefit solutions.

Due to this problem with closed-end gift cards, a number of merchants are now doing co-branded prepaid/gift cards with other merchants, so the closed loop card can be used at more outlets, says Deepak Chandnani, chief executive officer of Worldline South Asia and Middle East, a payments processing firm.

Sell partly used or unused cards

Earlier, if you received a gift card you didn’t want to use, you would pass it on as a gift or sell it to someone else at a discount. While this was informal, there is now an online platform to do it. Qwickcilver, a gift card technology and end-to-end prepaid solutions company has launched Woohoo a gift card secondary market exchange, the only one so far. This allows consumers to convert their unused or partially-used gift cards to cash by listing these at a price of their choice on the Woohoo gifting app.

How it works: You list your card and mention the price you want. Once verified, you need to give your bank account number and IFSC code. The money is transferred into your account once the card is sold. Usually, it takes two-three working days.

There is no rule on the discount you must list the card. Usually sellers list their cards at 5-10 per cent of the discount. There is no fee for listing, but once the card is sold Qwickcilver gets 10 per cent of the amount as fee. “One reason customers may want to sell their card is if that particular brand is not to their liking. For instance, I have a gift card for Rs 5,000 from a jewellery brand and I don’t want to buy jewellery.

I can sell my card before the validity expires and make some money. Or I get a travel card worth Rs 10,000 as wedding gift and I use Rs 6,000 for buying tickets. If I have no use for the remaining Rs 4,000, I can sell it . The person buying it can use it and get a discount on hotel or ticket bookings,” explains Pratap T P, co-founder, Qwikcilver.

While the seller can list physical cards, the buyer gets only the digital format of the card. So, there is no need to physically send the card. The security is the code on the card, sent to the mobile number and email ID of the buyer. Only gift cards for brands that are managed by Qwickcilver can be listed but this is about 90 per cent of the gift cards issued, Pratap adds.

Choose your card

Zeta offers a digital product that allows receivers to select a gift card, of their choice. The receiver gets an email and a PIN, which show the value of the card and the several brands available. So, if the value is Rs 5,000, you can use Rs 3,000 on Amazon and the rest on another website or even at an offline store. To use digital cards at stores you have to first generate a voucher and share that code at the store’s point-of-sales.

“The giver can also select a list of stores that you want to offer the card for, say, only book stores or only apparel stores,” says Gaddipati of Zeta.

Open-ended vs closed-end

For ItzCash, a leader in prepaid cards, 20-25 per cent of the entire year’s volumes comes in the 45 days during Diwali, says Bhavik Vasa its chief growth officer. “This year digital cards are the flavour. While we offer gift cards of individual retail houses, we find the open-ended gift cards powered by Visa are more popular,” he says.

ItzCash’s digital cards can be used only online but there is no restriction on the kind of transaction they can be used for. They can be used for booking tickets or making purchases. The Visa-powered gift card can be used in any store and both offline and online. However, they cannot be used at an ATM or be reloaded, as the purpose is gifting. The maximum amount that can be loaded is 50,000, which is the limit permitted for pre-paid instruments by the Reserve Bank of India.

“While we do offer gift cards for specific brands, we are seeing the shift towards the open-ended cards,” says Vasa.

Merchants also issue their own gift cards, which are closed-loop and can be used only at their own stores. But they run loyalty programmes through these and it is easier to do a chargeback by putting the refunded amount into the prepaid card, says Chandnani. “Since these are not PIN-based prepaid instruments, ensure that the card does not fall into the wrong hands,” he adds.

A lot of the closed-end cards are similar to gift vouchers and hence cannot be used after the expiry date. Some of these also specify the products can be that bought or not on the particular voucher, says Vinay Bhatia, head – analytics & loyalty, Future Group. “Most retailers in India do not give the option of redeeming the card/voucher in parts,” he adds.
GIFT CARDS ARE POPULAR BECAUSE… 

  • They are easy and convenient
  • They can be loaded in denominations ranging from as low as Rs 100 to as much as Rs 50,000
  • Receiver is free to buy anything of his choice
  •     Open-ended cards are universally accepted
  •     They can be used for online transactions too
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Festive #WoohooCelebration Winners Featured

The #WoohooCelebration contest ran for about a week on Woohoo’s social media channels. It had people from all over the country send in pictures of their festive celebrations. The winners bagged gift  cards worth Rs. 500 each and also got a chance to have their festive pictures featured on the Woohoo website and app as templates for the festive season.

Rameshwari Bansod

festive greeting, gift cards, gift vouchers, woohoo

<3 “My Auspicious and Aesthetic Folk Art” <3
Meaning of my caption :-
An ancient Indian art form, Rangoli is drawn at the entrance to usher in peace and prosperity. These are intricate patterns drawn in the courtyard or just outside the threshold of the entrance door to ward off evil spirits. Rangolis are believed to make the surroundings aesthetic and auspicious.

Apurva Balai

festive greetings, woohoo, gift cards, gift vouchers

This Diwali, don’t worry about what to gift. Go ahead and gift your loved ones the freedom to choose what they want with Diwali e-gift cards, customised with your personal messages and these beautiful festive templates.

 

 

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#WoohooDiaries3

By Bandini Pravin

I still remember my teacher always used to say that it doesn’t matter how much marks you get in your exams or whether you have topped in the class or not. The most important thing is how well you can implement your learnings into your life and make it better. She used to always say that all work and no play is not a balanced life. One has to go out and play with others, meet others to learn something more which no school or teacher can ever teach. Every day brings in some new learning for you which can be in any format and the day you are not learning even one new thing then it’s a waste of that day. I really respect her for her thoughts and it has actually made lot of change in my perspective of life…. 🙂

gifting, woohoodiaries, inspiration, thanks, thank you

 

By Preeti Jaiswal

My teacher, Priyanka Jain, was my favourite teacher in school. She has always been my mentor and my inspiration. When I was in school, I would get nervous and stammer while talking. All my classmates would make fun at me. I would then feel bad and cry for hours. At times I did not even feel like going to school. But my teacher made life in school easier for me. She requested the students to help me rather than tease me when I stammer. She would reward star points for students who did good deeds. Thus, my classmates stopped making fun of me when I stammered. They would help me with my speech. My teacher too put in lots of effort. She mentored me constantly and made me feel positive and happy. Every day after school she would spend an hour teaching me and training me. She would fill me with her positive thoughts. Within few months I regained my self-confidence and I actually stopped stammering. She also taught us Math in school and at that time I actually had the least interest in that subject. She realized that from the very beginning and so she always got me involved in every mathematics activity or project in class. In her own way she would motivate me. She would explain the same problem to me over and over again, till I actually understood it. She was very patient with me. Initially when I would score less, she would not shout at me. In fact, she would motivate me to work hard. Thus, I got influenced by her & I put in all my effort to study. Very soon I began to understand math easily and I soon loved the subject too. I owe all my success to her because she taught me that perseverance is the key to success.

From her I learnt to try and try till I succeed. She helped me build up a base for my self-confidence. My teacher has been my true inspiration.

 

 

gifting, woohoodiaries, inspiration, thanks, thank you

These stories, shared by our dear Woohoo fans, are part of the #WoohooDiaries series. If these stories inspire you (as much as they inspired us to launch this series) or if they remind you of someone you’d like thank, say hello or just send a note to, we at Woohoo would be more than happy to be the medium for your message. To send personalized little e-gift cards / e-notes to them via an SMS, Whatsapp or email, click here. If you’d prefer to have a physical gift card delivered to them, visit us at Woohoo.in.

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Gift card segment to grow 400%

As appeared in The Economic Times on 10 October 2016 by Priyanka Sangani

_______________________________________________________________________

Gift Card Survey, gift card segment, qwikcilver, pratap, economic times

The gift card segment in India is likely to get a huge boost this festive season with projected growth of 400% over the last year, according to the Qwikcilver Gift Card Survey.

The survey was carried out across 400 towns across 10,000 points of sale and also factored in the buying behaviour of 4,00,000 shoppers on Woohoo, the company’s ecommerce platform.

Qwikcilver cofounder Pratap said gift cards were becoming the preferred gifting option, with the company averaging almost 3-4million cards a month.

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Save on Apparels, This Diwali

discounted gift cards, offer, deals, woohoo

The festive season is here again and we’re all gearing up for it – filling shopping bags and emptying wallets. Getting the best deals and saving some money on such shopping sprees would definitely be something to cheer anyone up (no one minds saving some of that money!).

This Diwali, save your hard-earned moolah by shopping with discounted e-gift cards from brands like Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Pantaloons, Arvind brands (Arrow, Gant, Nautica, Izod, U.S Polo Assn., Elle), Planet Fashion, Allen Solly, Van Heusen and many more, available on Woohoo.

These gift cards are listed directly by the sellers, but Woohoo’s robust system ensures the values and validity you see are guaranteed. The discounts offered varies from brand to brand and also on the individual sellers. But if you keep monitoring the offerings you can get lucky with good deals. You need to be quick because the best deals get sold out pretty soon. If you’re lucky, you can save about 20-30% on the actual value of the e-gift card. The delivery of the e-gift card is instant so you don’t have to wait for eons before heading out shopping with it.

So go ahead and pick those e-gift cards from Woohoo. Use them to make payment for your shopping, instead of paying by cash or your credit / debit card. There you go, saving some of that precious money! Happy shopping and saving!:)

 

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#WoohooDiaries2

By Sakshi Bansal

When I think back to all the learnings that took place up until now I have to say that my idol and my favourite teacher is my wonderful mother, Poonam Bansal.

My fabulous mother has always been a great inspiration and supporter in each and every thing, throughout my life. The bond between me and my mother is not only limited to mother and daughter but it is far beyond it, as she is a great friend, a teacher and a trainer too. She represents a true picture of peace, contentment and courage and poured all these qualities in me to make me a better person. She has always taught me not to flummox and never say die but stand up to whatever the situation be.

She always says this catchy phrase…

“Ya to koi chiz asaan hoti hai ya bahut asaan, mushkil kuch nahi hota”, which really helps me in achieving anything I want.

Thank you so much mom for being such A Great Inspirer, An Empower and An Engager.

I am truly blessed and treasured to have you.

WoohooDiaries, Inspiration, gift, thank you

By Manju Nihalani

The sudden loss of my father left me forlorn and distressed. I was in 11th std. I lost my interest in my studies. One day my Principal, Sister Mabel, called me to her office. She gave me hug and asked me to cry my heart out. She spent almost an hour with me. Talking about my family, my dreams, my goals. Once I was calm and poised as she made me understand that life does not ends here. I have to be strong enough to face all the tragedies, hardships and difficulties.

Her compassion, ardent love, encouragement, appreciation once again made me lively and confident. I passed my board exams with flying colours.

For me, a TEACHER is an Angel. A person who can judge your virtues and vices, who can bring out the best in you. From the core of my heart I am always thankful to Sister Mabel who believed in me and made me a better person to live in this world. Sharing a memorable picture when I met her almost after 22 years and enjoyed the same warmth and comfort.

WoohooDiaires, inspiration, thank you, gift

These stories, shared by our dear Woohoo fans, are part of the #WoohooDiaries series. If these stories inspire you (as much as they inspired us to launch this series) or if they remind you of someone you’d like thank, say hello or just send a note to, we at Woohoo would be more than happy to be the medium for your message. To send personalized little e-gift cards / e-notes to them via an SMS, Whatsapp or email, click here. If you’d prefer to have a physical gift card delivered to them, visit us at Woohoo.in.

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Make Money by Selling Unused Gift Cards

Sid receives a gift card from his office in recognition of his work. But it’s from a brand that neither he nor his wife like. His dilemma – pick something for the sake of it or let the gift card go to waste.

Been in a similar situation before?

Well, you’ve got a reason to rejoice now! Woohoo has launched a platform where you can sell any unused gift card that you may have (of course you need to do it before it expires!)

The process is pretty simple. The listings are instant and you get your money directly in your account once the gift card is sold.

Here’s how to go about it:

On the web

  • Hop on to Woohoo’s “sell gift card section” – http://bit.ly/2dD7t8C
  • You’ll see this pop-up sell gift cards, woohoo, unused gift cards
  • Click on “Get Started”
  • You will be prompted to log in with your mobile number

sell gift cards, woohoo, unused gift cards

  • If you had already registered with us, you could just key in your password and log in to your account.
  • If your number is not been registered, you will be prompted to do so (this won’t take more than a minute).

sell gift cards, woohoo, unused gift cards

sell gift cards, woohoo, unused gift cards

  • Once you’ve successfully registered, you can start listing your gift cards for sale.

sell gift cards, woohoo, unused gift cards

On the app

  • If you do not have the app installed already, Click on https://bnc.lt/3KJb/00sTkvImax . OR search for Woohoo Gift Cards App on PlayStore
  • If you have the App already – click on the URL https://bnc.lt/3KJb/00sTkvImax . OR proceed to the “Sell Gift Cards” section of the Woohoo App.
  • You will also see the following welcome screens
  • sell gift cards, woohoo, unused gift cardssell gift cards, woohoo, unused gift cardsOnce you click on “Skip”, you will land on the “Sell gift cards” screen
  • sell gift cards, woohoo, unused gift cards
  • Click on the + (plus) sign to list your gift cards for sale.
  • The listing is instant. You can also list a physical gift card, which will be converted to an e-gift card.
  • Once the gift card is sold, the amount will directly be deposited into your bank account.

 

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