Free gifts make number of Wrapp users expand 66% in two months

By Raphael MichilisWrapp, the Swedish social e-gifting start-up, has enjoyed a phenomenal April and May.

By the end of May, Wrapp had attracted nearly 250,000 users, an increase of 100,000 compared to the end of March.

In the past two months, Wrapp users gifted 700,000 digital vouchers to friends via Facebook; in the first quarter of 2012, total Wrapp gifts totalled 1m.

In the US, Wrapp has enjoyed early success. Since launching last November, the app has featured in the top 25 Apple iTunes chart in the social networking category.

Wrapp was founded in 2011 and has attracted investment of USD10.5m, including backing from Niklas Zennström, Skype co-founder.

At the time of joining the Wrapp board of directors last year, Zennström said in a statement:

“Wrapp is targeting a huge market by leveraging two mega-trends: social networks and smartphones.”

In addition to selling gift cards from major retailers, Wrapp permits the user to send digital vouchers to friends via Facebook for free.

Free gift cards are uploaded everyday to the application by partner retailers, helping to boost Wrapp popularity.

The social gifting craze is attractive to merchants as a marketing weapon, as it provides access to customer data that can be used in highly targeted advertising operations.

Wrapp’s marketing highlights that the merchant is also rewarded with a friend-to-friend automated advertising campaign, as “each gift card posted on a recipient’s Facebook timeline or wall is seen by about 80% of their friends.”

According to Wrapp, the associated brands’ average sales are worth around four to six times the value of the free vouchers they provide, helping Wrapp gain popularity among suppliers.

Wrapp has reportedly signed up around 70 major retailers in the US and Europe, with 20 signing up since the end of March.

Global expansion
Already up and running in the US, Norway Sweden and the UK, Wrapp has plans to expand into another a number of other countries including Brazil, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Australia and Turkey.

At the end of May, Wrapp kicked of its service in Finland and opened an office in Poland.

The buzz created by the launch of Wrapp has also attracted a competitor offering from a German-based start-up, DropGifts.

DropGrifts' service offers free vouchers and, like Wrapp, allows several users to contribute to a single gift.

The digital vouchers can be converted into meals at restaurants, gym and magazine subscriptions, clothing and many other products and can be redeemed online or in person at a partner retailer.

Wrapp’s coupon is purely digital and cannot be printed, so the receiver has to present a smart device at store to be redeemed. By contrast, the DropGift version can be printed or even posted to the recipient’s home address in a physical version.

Other gift cards apps include US-based FreebeeCards. It went live on 21 May and enables Iowa-based companies to offer free gifts, rewards and discounts in the form of vouchers that can be redeemed via a smartphone or printed.

The value of the first FreebeeCards ranged from USD 6 to USD 1000, exchangeable at Jasper Winery and Farrell’s eXtreme Body Shaping gym club.

Wrapp opens office to offer free e-gifts in Poland

By Raphael Michilis
Swedish company Bohemian Wrappsody has announced it will soon launch its social gifting application Wrapp in Poland.

Wrapp has just opened its office in Warsaw in association with the online entrepreneur Lukasz Wejchert, developer of the mobile focused company Dirlango.

The company is now negotiating partnerships with Polish merchants to initiate its operations in the country.

Wrapp connects to Facebook and allow the users to send paid or even free electronic gift cards to their friends in the social network through a smart mobile device or a computer.

Wrapp partner retailers offer free gift cards daily. In the past five months nearly 250,000 users have given their Facebook friends over 1.7 million free gift cards that could be redeemed in stores controlled by about 70 US and European retailers, according to Bohemian Wrappsody.

The gift cards can be redeemed online or in person at a Wrapp partner retailer, in this case, the receiver has to present a smart device as the service “is purely digital,” and the electronic voucher cannot be printed.

Wrapp operates in the US, Norway Sweden and the UK, and already has plans to launch in Poland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Finland, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Turkey and Brazil.

Orange and Polish businesses to promote e-invoicing

By Raphael Michilis published on 16 May 2012

Orange Poland has teamed up with the Polish Confederation of Private

Employers Lewiatan to create an electronic payments coalition called “I choose e-invoice” (Wybieram e-fakture).

The implementation of e-invoicing solutions could reduce the overall costs of the invoicing process by about 80%, which is estimated to be around USD2.6 per invoice printed and posted, according to the e-fakture in Poland report published on the Lewiatan website.

Only 8% to 11% of the 1.5bn invoices issued in Poland every year are emitted electronically, according to the report.

The report highlights businesses of all sizes will profit from e-invoicing.

A large corporation issuing 20,000 invoices a month could save USD3.84m, while a smaller company sending out 1000 invoices on paper per month could save more than USD2,500 in that period, the document estimates.

Further to the processing costs, electronic invoicing should reduce costs of debt service and increase investment income, by shortening the billing cycle, which with paper takes from 19 to 40 days until the end of the process, according to the Polish National Clearing House (KIR SA).

Besides persuading companies to adopt the electronic solution, the e-fakture alliance wants to promote changes in Polish laws to promote e-invoice take-up in the country, the Clearing House says on its website.

The slow e-invoice take-up in Poland is, partly, due to marketing fragmentation caused by the complexity and lack of standardization of systems deployed across the EU, concludes the report.

According to another study, the savings from moving to electronic invoicing could reach at least USD51bn per year in Europe, Ricoh UK found.

In the United Kingdom alone, the savings could surpass USD5.5m, says the report.

Business and government electronic invoicing this year are expected to be 30% higher than in 2011, but penetration is still low with only 18% of all European invoices likely to be issued electronically, according to Ricoh.

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