There’s something impersonal about buying a gift from Amazon or a big box retailer, but many of us don’t have time to browse a dozen shops hoping one of them has the perfect present.
Giftphoria, founded by Anthony Abaci and Nic Clar, is a new startup that offers shoppers the best of both worlds: online shopping and same-day delivery — akin to Instacart — but only from local, independent boutiques.
How it works
Giftphoria is currently available in parts in Los Angeles with plans to expand.
- Store owners can sync their inventory with Giftphoria’s platform, allowing customers to shop their selection online. If an item sells out, the platform updates in real time.
- Shoppers can browse by store or category, finding things like ceramics, knick knacks, apparel, accessories, home goods, and pantry items.
- Purchases can be delivered in three hours for ~$14, same-day for $10, or next-day for ~$7. Customers can also choose in-store pickup, which accounts for ~5% of orders.
- Giftphoria takes a commission from each order.
Initially…
… Abaci set out to build an AI gift recommender, inspired by asking Anthropic’s Claude for help shopping for his girlfriend’s cousin. Users could fill out a quiz, choose a suggested gift from a nearby retailer, and have it delivered.
Abaci soon found that no one wanted AI to tell them what to buy, but they did like everything else.
“I think we got duped into thinking that convenience was associated just with corporate,” Abaci told The Hustle, referring to giants like Amazon or Instacart. “But as I was talking to customers, they loved how convenient it was for them to buy from a local store that they couldn't go to.”
Which, if you think about small businesses and how they often operate, makes sense. Many are only open during office hours, making it hard for people with full-time jobs to visit or even discover them.
- In fact, Abaci said that 83% of Giftphoria’s customers end up purchasing from a store they’d never heard of before, despite the fact that, to ensure speedy delivery, customers can only purchase from shops in or near their neighborhoods.
When Giftphoria launched its beta in September, Abaci and Clar made all the deliveries themselves. Since then, they’ve had to hire additional drivers and have onboarded 40+ stores. In the future, Giftphoria may expand not just geographically, but to also include local artists “almost like a localized Etsy.”
“If we can give [artists] that distribution platform and help everybody make money [and] have everybody find really unique, one-of-a-kind items, everybody wins.”
