Wrapp App A Worthy Package For Early Adopters

By Pete Rizzo, Editor (@Pete_rizzo_)

We’ve all been there. You agonize over finding the right gift for a friend’s or relative’s birthday. Once you find it, you then have to ship it to the recipient, paying for postage or packaging along the way.

But if social commerce startup Wrapp can execute on its vision, that process is about to get an update for the 21st century.

Wrapp, which is based in both Sweden and California and recently closed a $15 million funding round, is a social gift card service that aims to make it “as fun and easy to send friends a gift card as it is to send them a greeting.”

But while investors may be in love with the concept of social gift cards, Wrapp is still competing with larger players, most notably Facebook Gifts and the recently announced Amazon Birthday Gift.

In this PYMNTS.com App Review, I aim to let you know if Wrapp’s mobile app lives up to the hype, so you can determine whether it’s worth adding the company’s signature yellow-W icon to your home screen.

What Is Wrapp?

To understand Wrapp, we have to first talk about social gift cards. Wrapp provides a number of interesting variations on this product. For example, Wrapp gives you the option to send free gift cards of a certain, generally low value (between $5 and $10) from participating retailers to recipients. In return, these companies gain an additional outlet for advertising.

Interestingly, Wrapp lets your contacts add value to a gift card, which makes Facebook integration for this app essential. When your friends see that you’ve given a gift, they in turn can up the “free” value of the gift card to the maximum amount allowed by the retailer. If social giving isn’t your style, you can also avoid this process entirely and purchase traditional paid gift cards through the service. 

Using Wrapp

After downloading Wrapp, you’ll be asked a series of questions. These include whether the app can use your current location, whether you’d like to receive push notifications and whether it can access your phone’s Wi-Finder. However, that’s all it takes to get set up.

Once you make your selections, you’ll be brought to what may first seem like a busy home screen. This is actually the app’s “Brands” page, which displays a visual heading and a “Featured” section. Here, you’ll see “Top Brands:” a collection of deals currently being offered on the site. I chose Fab.com’s deal for this review. I’m shopping for my college roommate Dan’s birthday, and I feel like he’ll enjoy the amount of choice he’ll get from eCommerce site. 

After clicking on Fab.com, I’m brought to a new page for this company. On the top, I see a banner display with Fab’s profile picture and cover photo. I am given three options, to “Follow” Fab on Wrapp, send my friend a $10 Fab.com gift card or buy a $20 to $50 Fab.com gift card. I send the free gift card.

Sending A Free Gift From Wrapp

Even though I just want to give a gift to Dan, I’m greeted with a list of all my Facebook contacts on the next screen. This can be jarring depending on how many contacts you have, but the search bar makes it easy to navigate. To move forward, either search for a specific friend, or choose a number of friends from your contacts.

Once I select Dan, I’m prompted to write a short greeting. I then select how Dan will receive his gift. I can send by email, Facebook or both. I select “both,” though I think for more than a few moments about whether I want this type of message appear publicly on my friend’s Facebook feed.

Next, Wrapp asks how I’d like it to interact with my friend’s social profile, and I’m given several options. I can share the gift to all Facebook, with only friends, with just myself or with a specific interest group. I can also allow the app to post on a friend’s wall or just skip this altogether before sending.

Final Say

Overall, I’d say Wrapp is definitely a well-constructed app with one major barrier: social acceptability. Consumers are generally wary of being early adopters of services, especially when they involve overt advertising, and I’ll admit I felt a bit odd about sending a “gift” that I didn’t pay for with my money.

If Wrapp can overcome these potentially negative consumer perceptions, I believe this app has a good chance of finding favor with advertisers and the public. After all, in a perfect world, who wouldn’t want to be able to give gifts without having to pay?

To see for yourself, download Wrapp for iPhone here or Wrapp for Android here.