Online registry offers new way to give cash

By DARRELL SMITH
Monday, February 12, 2007

You're getting married but already have the toaster, the Crock-Pot and three sets of bath towels. Or your college graduation is coming up, but you don't really need another gift certificate or a monogrammed pen set.

What you really want is cold, hard cash. But how do you ask for it, well, politely?

In a new twist on gift registries, a Rancho Cordova, Calif. couple have launched GoGift, an online business that lets you give and get cash without feeling gauche.

Co-founder Trent Long, an information technology manager for a local medical services provider, says the Web-based business offers a means of "tasteful" gift-giving.

"People want money, but they don't know how to ask for it," said Trent Long, GoGift's co-founder. "We're a tasteful alternative to asking for cash."

GoGift's concept is simple: Whether it's for a graduation, wedding, birthday or other special occasion, you register your desire for cash online at www.gogift.com.

Your guests, who can be notified of the registry by e-mail or invitation inserts, can deposit cash amounts. Once the amount reaches $100, you're issued a GoGift MasterCard charge card that can be used like a debit card. The giver pays a 7 percent handling charge; the GoGift recipient pays a 50-cent transaction fee any time the card is used.

Considerate, thoughtful and well-intentioned?

At least one etiquette expert calls it anything but. Rebecca Black, owner of Davis, Calif.-based Etiquette Now, groans at the mere mention of a cash registry.

"I think it's right there with one word: repulsive. Can you imagine what guests are going to think?" Black said.

Some guests think it's just fine, according to Long and his co-founder and partner Christy Gelesko, who made that discovery three years ago. They'd just bought their Rancho Cordova home and wanted to throw a housewarming party but had almost everything they needed, except for a new couch.

So, instead of pots and pans, they asked for cash. Their guests responded eagerly, giving birth to the GoGift concept.

To the 36-year-old Long, it just made sense. "It's something I'd use. I knew my buddies would use it," Long said.

GoGift went live about a month ago and, according to Long, already has nearly 100 customers, ranging from Sacramento to Arizona, Florida and Vermont.

Long and his investors have put about $50,000 into the company so far and expect to add as much as $50,000 more as the company grows. He said he's also seeking venture capital money.

Black, whose etiquette firm educates area businesses on good manners, says "most etiquette experts would find it very distasteful."

But not all. Peggy Post, director of the Burlington, Vt.-based Emily Post Institute and scion of America's first family of etiquette, has deemed it perfectly acceptable to politely request money, even as a wedding gift.

"With more second marriages and couples coming to the altar with established households, there's not as much need today for toasters, tumblers and table settings. For many couples, money makes an ideal gift," Post stated in a press release about a recent survey of U.S. brides and grooms-to-be.

Etiquette issues aside, non-traditional gift registries seem to be an emerging trend in an already lucrative market.

The U.S. gift registry market was $13.6 billion in 2006, with weddings making up more than 95 percent of sales through gift registries, according to a December study by Chicago-based Mintel International Group Ltd., a market analysis company. Bridal and baby showers came in a distant second and third place.

Registries, in turn, are a multibillion-dollar slice of the overall consumer retail pie. Americans spent some $282 billion _ roughly 10 percent of the consumer retail market _ in 2005 on gifts for family and friends, according to Pennsylvania-based market analysts Unity Marketing Inc., based on U.S. Census Bureau data.

Though they still make up only a small fraction of the market, the use of non-traditional gift registries _ for things like mortgages, charitable donations and yes, cash _ has grown slightly in recent years, from $9.5 million in sales to about $10.2 million. Mintel analysts anticipate more growth as more niche registries develop.

Changing attitudes, active promotions by retailers, the influence of the Internet, popularity among young buyers and an increasingly casual American culture are all reasons why non-traditional gift registries are gaining traction, Mintel reported.

It found that about 60 percent of men and four in 10 women who used a gift registry for a wedding thought cash was an acceptable gift.

"A cash registry is a pretty novel idea. It's certainly an interesting idea," said David Morris, a Mintel analyst who was part of the gift registry study.

Long envisions GoGift complementing other more traditional registries.

"We're not trying to take over Macy's or other registries. We want (customers) to do it in conjunction with those," Long said. "We want to give them the purchasing power and the flexibility."

And safety. A certified IT security professional, Long is adamant that safely handling hard cash in cyberspace was a key element in starting his business. Cubis Finanical Ltd., a Las Vegas firm, handles GoGift's financial transactions and the site's security.