Verve chats with Alex Howard, co-founder of the company shaking up gift-giving, Chuffed Gifts.
How did Chuffed Gifts start, and where do you fit in?
My fellow co-founders and I had discussed the concept many times and knew it was good enough to shake up the gift industry. But it took covid and the challenges it imposed on the tourism industry, including our own redundancies, to kick us into action. Melissa built a website, I rented a campervan and toured the country onboarding NZ tourism businesses, and James handled the challenge of marketing a new concept to New Zealanders.
We pulled it all together in time for Christmas 2020. The concept was well received right away, and we made a real mess in James’ spare room that first Christmas fulfilling orders and shipping them all over the country! Amongst other things, I oversee our network of partner businesses – meaning a few more laps of NZ since 2020. We’re now partnered with more than 200 NZ-based experience providers.
How does a Chuffed Gift work?
A Chuffed Gift is completely unique, a way to gift someone an experience, but letting them pick which one they want. The Gift Buyer chooses a category like Good Times for Two, we send out an exciting physical gift to put under the xmas tree, and the recipient then chooses from up to 150 experience options all over NZ. It’s no-fail experience gifting, with a fun gift instead of a sad PDF voucher under the tree!
What is it that you love about Chuffed Gifts?
I know this is a weird answer, but I love seeing invoices rolling in from our experience partner businesses! We created Chuffed Gifts to get people gifting more experiences and sold the concept to our partner businesses as an avenue to reach new customers. Every invoice represents a completion of this cycle and means that we’re doing what we set out to!
A lot of photos and videos get shared with us, and we often play these at team meetings which always brings out a few smiles.
How has a covid startup like Chuffed thrived when so many others haven’t?
We don’t really consider ourselves a covid startup, we knew the concept would be popular in New Zealand well before covid gave us the nudge. The reason we’re thriving is simple: our product is totally unique and something that New Zealanders needed to become better gift givers, they just didn’t know it yet! As more people see or hear about us, the more word spreads.
Our gifts are constantly getting better, too, with new experiences added almost weekly, meaning people return to buy the next time they need a gift.
What are some of the unique experiences on offer?
We pride ourselves on having a broad and exciting range of experiences. We’re lucky to be spoiled for choice in NZ when it comes to incredible, unique experiences! Some of our most unique options include abseiling 100m into an underground ravine in Waikato, glamping on Kāpiti Island, or a full day, hands-on farm-to-table cooking experience in Kaikoura. There’s also heli-skiing, swimming with wild dolphins, bathing in geothermal mud, bioluminescent kayaking, and-feeding wild stingrays. I could go on and on!
