GoGifting seizes social gifting gap after Rocket Internet bins DropGifts SA plans

Last year, we reported that DropGifts, Rocket Internet’s social gifting startup was about to enter South Africa. Fast forward roughly a year, and there is still no trace of the Wrapp-clone. What happened?

Kevin Tucker, the serial-entrepreneur who would have headed up DropGifts South Africa, tells Ventureburn that Rocket Internet was due to launch DropGifts in 27 countries, but scratched South Africa off the list days before the launch.

“We were due to launch within days and they suddenly, due to all sorts of operational issues, decided not to launch in South Africa.”

Tucker founded shopping comparison service PriceCheck, which was acquired by MIH Internet Africa, a division of Naspers in 2010, as well as popular, but short-lived daily deal site, Dealify.

In May last year, Tucker left Rocket Internet and started work on his own gifting platform, called GoGifting. Tucker tells us that GoGifting was built from scratch locally and is now a wholly South African-owned entity focussed on building a social gifting platform. By all accounts GoGifting is now also South Africa’s largest gift card mall.

The service that lets you send free and paid gift cards to your friends on Facebook, has recently expanded its offering to over 40 gift cards and vouchers from big brands like Carrol Boyes, Pick n Pay, Cape Union Mart and Clicks.

Shoppers can leverage the platform to send gifts for birthdays, weddings, engagements, or just to say thanks.

“We’ve had so many requests for a larger selection of brands from our users and we’re happy to oblige,” says Kevin Tucker, founder of GoGifting. “There’s definitely a huge gap in the market to bring gift cards to online consumers. No more trekking to the shopping centre to find the right gift.”

Gift cards come in two different types: physical and virtual. Physical gifts are couriered to the recipient — GoGifting handles all the fulfilment. Virtual gift cards are sent electronically and can be used immediately. Tucker tells us that for a limited period, all shipping is free on GoGifting.