Q8Ba7th Official Blog

Name: Q8eGifts.com

Business Type: Gifts Shopping

Language: English/Arabic

Launch Date: First seen November, 2008

Brief: Kuwait online gift shopping site offering flower bouquets and chocolate gifts.

Review: Q8eGifts comes with a unique theme of it’s own, and a nice design aimed at showing best offers at the top. The variety and type of products offered so far are not so attractive, while I do notice some slight updates on the gifts collection, they do need a wider range to choose from, and it definitely needs more original or unique content of its own to separate it from the rest, rather than regular chocolates you can find at the grocery nearby you.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Name: LovelyThings.biz

Brief: LovelyThings.biz is another online virtual gift store in Kuwait that seems to operate from home since 2004, providing their services of gift assembly for the requested occasion. They offer a variety of gift baskets for your occasion, such as Baby, Birthday, Children, Eid, Father’s Day (They remember us!), Girgean and others. According to them, most gift items come from the US and UK. Thus it seems to take 3 days before your basket is ready, or an additional small extra fee for short time notices.

How To Order: While this may not be the most technological advanced solution, it may be the best for it’s type of business in Kuwait. You basically select the basket you like, do some custom changes if you like, write it down and email it to them, or add it to your shopping cart and proceed to checkout. Email picture of your basket is sent once it’s ready. If you like it, you get it delivered to you, and do cash on delivery payment. They seem flexible that you can pay in a different location, or do an NBK bank transfer, and while your order is in process, they do have a tracking page. Not sure how it looks though.

Cost: It’s hard to judge on the basket price without having good knowledge about per item price. However judging on what I see, and using my assumptions, I would say the baskets are a bit over priced. You are paying the extra charge for the service of getting it done and delivered to you. 20 KD minimum charge for FREE delivery.

Design: Site has a pretty humble design, quick, straight to the point. I would suggest some revision to the text style and color, which right now is a bit difficult to read.

Samples:

Our Pick: While browsing through the samples, we were speechless when we saw this one!

Diaper Cakes!

• Site design gets a little review. As mentioned before, revision of font style and coloring. Some layout improvements are possible I guess, though I my self am not the expert in design.
• Contact Info: It is always more professional to give contact form rather than giving email address or mobile number. If it is required, a better way of presentation I think would make it also look more professional. They seem to have one actually!
• Cost: If possible, a lower price might attract more customers. (As a matter of fact, this is always the case
• Theme and special featuring: It’s quite nice to see a great variety of categories from LovelyThings. However, without good promotion for it, it will not fly as good. Right now we are in Ramadan, and LovelyThings offer Eid and Girgean baskets. However you don’t see any special featuring of those baskets anywhere in the site, when it’s the best time of the year for such unique offerings. People are always looking for such things. Featuring those baskets would draw people’s attention. Changing site theme if possible to Ramadan one, while a bit costly in time and money, would make people spend more time on the site, searching for what they these days.
• Baskets: Some baskets we believe can be improved. Our two examples are Ramadan and Eid, which are supposed to have local touch. I have seen so many head turning baskets for those occasions, but not here. Hope we can get some of those, I believe they can be very helpful.

If you were a customer of this store before, please do share your experience with us. As we haven’t.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Name: BasketsMadePerfect.com

Type: Gifts

Description: Online store to browse for category of high class gift baskets customized for your occasion. Site design is quite appealing I find it. From there you can select one of 14 predefined gift basket categories, like birthday baskets, corporate gift baskets, wedding, new baby, passion and others. The way to order is by selecting the type of gift you are looking for, after which the store will give you a call to further discuss the details of your gift basket content, look and final pricing. You get a chance to see the basket physically before sending it, or just do with a picture of it. Process is not 100% automated, and being custom made, I don’t think you can use it for next day delivery orders as well. But for custom gift baskets, I guess it’s very difficult to have it so, and you may prefer customizing it for the occasion, and check it before it’s sent over. Payment is possible in cash, money orders, wire transfer, or company checks. Some sample photos below.

USER EXPERIENCE UPDATE:

Sometimes things just happen at the right time. When I wrote about this site it didn’t come to my mind I have an occasion coming up, and I didn’t prepare anything for it yet. Soon after I realized this is the perfect easy way to have my gift ready while I’m at home, and give the site a shot as well. I didn’t use the contact form I just called the number directly, trying to figure if they can prepare something within 24 hours. It was as I expected, home based business but with professional and focused service. You get to talk to the lady, explain the occasion and kind of baskets you are looking for. Give an estimate of the price so that she can help in recommending the items inside the basket. I asked for a sample of similar baskets and got it sent soon after to my email.

Giving her the OK, next morning I got an email and SMS notice to check the photos of the basket. Due to my time constraints, I did it this way, but she offers a physical check of the basket before final wrapping as well. Delivery is available at no extra cost, but in my case, I chose to do the pickup from their home location. The basket was larger than I expected, looked really nice as well.

I have not compared the prices to outside ones, but it’s a good service that for me might be worth the money. Sorry I cannot say the price here, as it’s a gift and normally you do not disclose gift prices .

Popularity: 31% [?]