T he million-dollar question that clouds any excitement of attending a wedding is ‘What do we gift the bride and groom?’ As a solution to this, there have been a spurt of wedding registry platforms such as MyThofa.com, ForMyShaadi.com, and WeddingWishlist.com, which provide a curated list of gifts as options for wedding invitees. The newest one in the list is city-based Zibonga (which means Thank You in Zulu). However, they introduce the same concept with a twist.
Sajan Abraham, the founder, explains, “What distinguishes us from the rest is that we do not feature a curated list of items. So, there are no consumer durables like refrigerators, washing machines, bed linens or lamps. Instead, we have partnered with sites such as Amazon, HomeStop, Urban Ladder, Croma, Cox and Kings, Myntra and so on, from which invitees can choose gift vouchers worth a certain amount.”
Ideally, couples have to create a new gift registry on the website a few months prior to the wedding, when they are handing out their invitations. The registry link can be mentioned either on the invitation, shared through social media or sent through WhatsApp. Couples have an option to choose between a gift registry or a cash registry. “For example, today, with more couples opting to live separately from their families, they would want furniture or home durables for their new place, instead of a dozen recycled clocks, flower vases and portraits of gods that they would otherwise get. They can either select those options, or start a cash registry to buy a new vehicle, for their honeymoon trip, and so on,” he says. “And the best part is, if they don’t want to use any of the vouchers that the invitees have put their money in, they can choose to redeem all the cash within six months from the wedding day. It will be transferred to their bank accounts with a five per cent commission charge,” he says.
While the process is simple and free of cost, the challenge that a two-month and four-wedding-old start-up such as Zibonga faces is the attitude of society, which is still uncomfortable with the idea of ‘asking for gifts’. “A common practice in the West (Bloomingdale’s started it even before the Web age), the concept is still new here. In the Rs. 2,60,000 crore wedding industry and a Rs. 26,000 crore wedding gift industry, the wedding registry is a virgin market. But things are changing; we ran our business idea with many youngsters, and a lot of them believe in giving and getting meaningful gifts,” he says.
