GiftGen.co.uk - Generating Gift Ideas for the Clueless

Finding the right gift for that special someone can often be a trying experience, which is why gift certificates and coupons are often safe, but thoughtless recourses. To save you from the gifting doldrums, UK based site GiftGen will create a gift list for you. You start by entering in a few details about the person you’re trying to buy for; these include gender, age range, and personality traits such as indoor/outdoor, artsy, hippy, sporty, etc—all these can be selected from several drop down lists. Once these have been filled out, GiftGen will return with a list of possible gifts. Each item on the list contains links to websites and shops from which you can purchase the gift, as well as price comparison sites so you can find the best deal. Simply hover over each link to get a list of other alternatives. The gift suggestion list can be filtered by category, e.g. pastime, creative, gadgets, etc.

“GiftGen is the creation of two ex-college buddies both now in their thirties. The site took over 2 years to develop, which involved research of gift ideas, websites and high street shops. The site does not have its own products to promote and is therefore unbiased, and able to suggest any gift idea under the sun. Gift ideas range from free ideas like ‘Wash their car Voucher’, to top end ideas such as ‘A trip on the orient express’ and ethical ideas like ‘Some chicks for a 3rd world family’.”

GiftGen is certainly a handy site. It compiles what looks like pretty comprehensive lists of gifts according to the criteria you put in; you’re bound to find something that will work. Beyond that, it gives you lots of useful links for price comparison and for actual shops too.

The UI is a bit old and dreary looking—it needs some work. All prices on the site are in pounds, will a currency converter be added? Also, the site has a tendency to be extremely slow, a fact which won’t keep users coming back.