Tony skinner 00:01
Hi, and welcome to the podcast channel for www.podcastmybusiness.com.au. And today we’re joined by Monique Stewart, from https://egiftit.com.au/ How are you? Monique?
Monique Stewart 00:17
I’m very well, how are you? 
Tony skinner 00:19
I am awesome. And we’re just talking about that. This is your first full podcast, and I’ve done so many since March. I’m up to about 60 or 70.
Monique Stewart 00:30
Oh, wow, you’ve been busy.
Tony skinner 00:32
I have and the old business owners and businesses and brands and what have you. So yeah, a lot podcasting is exploding, which is awesome. Something else? Oh, sorry. Yep. Cool. Something else is exploding is E gift cards. And what I like about yours is you have a digital wrapping paper.
Monique Stewart 00:59
Yes. So with digital gifting, we used, I guess we started a gift, probably about a year ago with the intention to kind of take our time and launch, then COVID happened. But one of the things we did identify with digital gifting and digital gift cards in particular is that it was quite impersonal for the giver and the receiver. So we kind of wanted to design a platform where you could show your loved one, just how much thought you did actually put into your gifts. So we design the ability for gifters to select from a range of different digital gift wrapping plus a greeting cards, music, etc. So that what the recipient actually receives in the end is kind of a digital unwrapping experience on their phone or their can compute us. So yeah, I guess that’s the whole premise behind it. And as you can imagine, throughout COVID, it’s kind of gone to different heights than we kind of would have expected just with, you know, restrictions and not being able to see loved ones and whatnot. So yeah, that’s kind of, in a nutshell, what we’ve designed. And yeah, we can just hope it just continues to grow, especially in the lead into Christmas to.
Tony skinner 02:19
Ah, exactly. And that’s, again, this is another podcast in a series of podcast for Christmas gifts and the like. Mm hmm. Because that is coming up sooner than we all think we’ve got a plan ahead. But I did like this one here. I can see thank you from the bottom of my glasses. That’s my sense of humor.
Monique Stewart 02:39
Yes. And that was one of the things we really wanted to make sure was that we were kind of going for that dry humor as well. Obviously, there’s people need a little bit of a morale lift and a laugh every now and then, especially at this time. So what we wanted to do was kind of put some little funny ones in there as well, not too risque, but just kind of the way thinking of you. And the thank you from the bottom of my gloss and those kind of ones because, you know, it’s just, it’s just nicer, I guess received those kind of funny ones.
Tony skinner 03:12
Huh, Yeah, I agree. And of course, you know, thinking about that we’re, well, some of us are locked down more than others. I’m in Sydney. So we’re almost, well, we’re pretty much in COVID normal whenever we get back to 100% yet. But yeah, so and you’ve got it here that they have a minimum three years expiring.
Monique Stewart 03:34
Yeah, that’s right. So actually, one of the great things that happened with legislation recently and this is for all gift cards is that across Australia, all gift cards, whether physical or digital must have a minimum three year expiry. So that is awesome. You’ve now don’t have to rush to use it. Especially you know, when you send me a gift card in these kind of climates at the moment you worry that honor, this person may not be able to get out and about to use it. There’s no stress minimum freeze expiry. And actually some retailers give a full, free kind of no expiry situation as well, which is really awesome, too.
Tony skinner 04:14
Huh, that’s interesting.
Monique Stewart 04:19
Liquor deliveries. I’m not sure actually. I only know what’s happening in Sydney. So I would I actually don’t know.
Tony skinner 04:31
Oh, there you go. Well, I’m sure after many months of being locked down, I’m sure they would deliver by now.
Monique Stewart 04:37
Yeah, I mean, like that’s easy money.
Tony skinner 04:41
Absolutely. Oh my say in essential services. Some people like I’m, let’s face it. We’re stuck at home with the people we know and love. But we want to get out of the home as well.
Monique Stewart 04:55
Yes, exactly.
Tony skinner 04:57
Yeah, awesome. Okay. So you’re saying that you You know, you’ve been developing it for a while. So what was the inspiration behind doing this?
Monique Stewart 05:04
Um, so I guess the other half of our business were already in the gift card industry. We sold that digital gift cards were increasing in demand year on year, to the point where we knew that they would eventually overtake physical gift cards. They’re not anywhere near that point yet, but we really wanted to, you know, get in on this massive opportunity. But as I mentioned before, really did want to capitalize on ensuring that we could create a personalized experience for, you know, gift givers and gift receivers. And if you even if you just take, for example, like wallets becoming probably redundant over the next couple of decades or so, I stole my driver’s license, credit card loyalty cards, why not store digital gift cards on your mobile phone as well. So that’s where we see going on. So we’re just trying to get in early and really make a name for ourselves now. 
Tony skinner 06:02
Hmm, Excellent. Excellent. And that’s what it’s about. I mean, again, podcasts my business isn’t that old? You got to get out there early with something new. Yeah. Um, I’m just reading you’re on your site. So you’re based here in Sydney in cronulla, which is
Monique Stewart 06:20
yes. Yeah. So we’re actually on the shores of cronulla. So I have a little view of the beach, which is nice. It’s nice to be back in the office actually, after COVID restrictions. Just maybe the team again. But yeah, really love. Like, you know, where we work. Our teams, such a close, little, little team, all of our dev guys here in the office with us as well. A really collaborative experience. Yeah, so wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Really? Hmm.
Tony skinner 06:51
Yeah. And I like the variety. You’ve got here the different cards I’ve I use my points for my credit card on gift cards.
Monique Stewart 06:59
Nice. any favorite?
Tony skinner 07:04
Um, JB Hi, fi. David Jones. And you’ve got those used to be one day and it’s it used to be Flight Center. But I guess that’s where the lucky the expiry dates for a while.
Monique Stewart 07:18
Yeah, exactly. Flight Center hasn’t been very popular at the moment, I can tell you, the Uber Uber eight Swan has just like gone through the roof with this. It’s just people, especially businesses, actually, we’ve found a lot of businesses coming on board and you know, wanting to hold virtual lunches or virtual conferences, and then sending Uber Eats gift cards to you know, all the virtual attendees saying, Hey, here’s a nice little gift for lunch, make sure you redeem it, whilst you know, we’re holding a virtual seminar. So that Spain, awesome to say, um, and yeah, I guess, seeing a lot of businesses take on this as well, just to show employees referrers clients, you know, just how much they appreciate them during this time as well.
Tony skinner 08:10
Yeah, I can certainly see a lot of businesses wanted to buy these for their staff. For Christmas,
Monique Stewart 08:18
yes. Yes. Massive, massive opportunity there for us as well. We’ve already started to say this happen. In the lead up to Christmas, we’ve had a couple of businesses, small and large come on board with us as regular gift givers, whether it be to employees or to clients. But what we’re actually in the works of doing at the moment is building a specialized b2b portal, where businesses will be able to send digital gift cards in bulk. So kind of whether it’s 50 100 200 and personalized for Christmas. I just think that that’s just going to be amazing for these guys.
Tony skinner 09:00
Yeah, I completely agree. So yeah, you got to get over that pretty quickly. So
Monique Stewart 09:04
yes, so our list is long, but we’re working hard and we we know we’re gonna get it done by Christmas.
Tony skinner 09:14
I like this you quite crafty the fashion gift for her. Yeah, the home card and the baby card and the kids card. Where’s the men’s cup?
Monique Stewart 09:24
So they’re the men’s and the active are at the top. We recently ran a little promo on them. So we kept them at the time. But yeah, don’t worry, we’ve got everyone. It’s actually a really cool concept. What that this card partner has come up we’ve just kind of an aggregate a card for all of these awesome brands and retailers. So when you actually purchase one of these cards, you can go on when you redeem you can select any of those brands associated and gives you the option to redeem online or in store depending on the retailer. So a really great Christmas gift idea are those on yes Those aggregator cards. So yeah, they’ve been really popular, especially the last, the last massive spike we had in those was Father’s Day, their fashion card became just was just flew off the virtual shelf.
Tony skinner 10:13
Mm hmm. Absolutely. And I see you’ve got one here. So in data spark and see, women are gonna buy that for and PlayStation and Xbox. Yeah. Men and teenagers as well. So you got a pretty good variety.
Monique Stewart 10:30
Yeah. And that’s just been working hard and closely with our cloud partners, and looking to onboard many, many, many more brands as well. So yeah, our opportunities are really endless. If you’ve got a business or a brand that offers digital gift cards, we’d be looking to integrate with them.
Tony skinner 10:51
Yeah, exactly. So I think all those businesses out there that are listening that want to look at giving, like gift cards to the clients, or coming up with their own concept idea for gift cards that people be interested in, this is a pretty good opportunity.
Monique Stewart 11:07
Yeah, it is. We’re opening up to, you know, different, different customers with different needs. Our dev team are awesome. They I don’t understand code at all. But I know that they can integrate with anything, or anyone. So yeah, any businesses or retailers looking to kind of expand their, you know, reach, I guess in the Australian consumer market, we’d love to hear from them.
Tony skinner 11:35
Right, fantastic. Okay, anything else you’d like to add?
Monique Stewart 11:38
I’m just, you know, check us out. We’re a small Australian business, looking to get through COVID. So any sort of support or business advice even that you can throw away, even if it’s just from a customer experience point of view, we’re taking on all feedback at the moment, we would love to hear any positive or, unfortunately, negative feedback. So yeah, open to anything.
Tony skinner 12:03
Fantastic. And that’s a cool thing about a gift. You don’t have to worry about Australia Post or Korea’s
Monique Stewart 12:07
exactly perfect for last minute gifts. They’re sent instantly as well. So you can be the most unorganized person in the world and still have a gift for Christmas Day.
Tony skinner 12:16
Well, every man should have this bookmarked on their browser.
Monique Stewart 12:21
I agree.
Tony skinner 12:27
Well done. Okay. All right. Look, thanks very much for your time, Monique. And so that’s https://egiftit.com.au/ Especially for all those blogs out there because we’re opening slack. Great opportunity.
Monique Stewart 12:40
Thank you so much for having me.
