Occasional.ly is a progressive web app that sends you push and email reminders with AI-powered gift recommendations. Gift recommendations are sourced from small businesses, never huge companies. This is the official launch of our open beta!
Hey Product Hunters!!
I'm Lukas and I'm the maker and co-founder of Occasional.ly. Years ago, my wife came up with this brilliant idea, and I'm thoroughly exhilarated to now be launching our open beta of the Occasional.ly platform!
Here's how it works:
Join Occasional.ly, and create "giftees". A giftee tracks a special person who you want to get gift recommendations for when their occasions come up. You can create giftees a couple different ways:
- Add someone already on Occasional.ly (another Occasional.ly user)
- Invite someone to Occasional.ly via email or with a special link
- Create a giftee from scratch
It works best if you add another user or invite someone to join Occasional.ly. This way, they fill out their gift and occasion information, and - BAM - you've got gift recommendations and occasion reminders. You can also just create the giftee from scratch, but you'll have to do the info adding yourself.
Once you've got your giftees setup, just sit back and relax!! When occasions start coming up on your calendar, you'll get email and/or push notification reminders packed with personalized gift recommendations! Slam DUNK!
IMPORTANT TO NOTE: If you are in the midst of a frantic search for gifts for someone, then it's not the right time to signup for an Occasional.ly account. That's what the gift guides are for: https://www.occasional.ly/gift-g.... Joining the Occasional.ly platform is about investing in your occasion future, and being positioned to handle future gift-giving occasions sweat-free.
As I said this is an open beta, so you can sign up at the link, but know that the kinks are still being worked out. Thanks everyone!
@lukas_deconantsesznak Hi Lukas, congratulations on the launch! I LOVE this idea, as finding a good present is a pain sometimes. You mention that one should signup some time before the occasion happens - is this because you'll need to add the giftee person and wait till the algorithm collects the needed info? Is it possible to use Occasional.ly without signing up the giftee?
My little feedback on the launch page: it would be great to see what kind of occasions the product is good for without going to the landing page. Also, I feel it would benefit from having a video to show how it works.
@margarita_s88 thank you so much for checking out Occasional.ly and expressing your support!! 😍 I would love to answer your questions.
Firstly, that is a great question about why to signup some time before a certain occasion. This is because there are faster avenues to get immediate gift ideas in a pinch, and creating an account and going through onboarding is probably not a great experience if you are truly in a hurry. That is where the gift guides we have created come in handy. Additionally, if your giftee is not already on Occasional.ly or you are not planning to invite them, then you will have to create them yourself. Meaning you will have to add their gift interests(chocolate, flowers, etc.) and add their occasions(birthday, etc.). This doesn't take much time at all, but to a user in hurry it is probably too much. In regards to the algorithm for recommending gifts, it is actually quite fast and you won't need to wait at all! 😎
In regards to your second question, you can definitely use Occasional.ly without signing up the giftee!! You'll just have to input their gift interests and occasions yourself. Invite others to Occasional.ly is the recommended approach because it provides the best user experience for everyone 😀. In the future, we will have ways to make it easier for users to get gift recommendations without adding the interests themselves. More to come on that!
Great point about kinds of occasions! Let me add that!
- Kwanzaa
- Hanukkah
- Christmas
- Valentine's Day
- Mother's/Father's Day
- Birthday's, Wedding's, anniversaries
- Anything custom that falls on a regular calendar day!!
In the future, we will add more built-in occasions that fall on different days in the year, like Diwali. 🎁
In regards to a video, I totally agree! Stay tuned for more on that...
Again thank you for all your wonderful support and thoughtful questions!! 😍
@berthakgokong Thank you so very much! Yes everybody seems to find trouble in this department :) check it out and feel free to let us know what you think in the comments!
@vladimir_demchuk thanks so much for the kind words! The gift recommendations is of course one of the most important pieces we are still improving and will always be improving. We have a lot of great gifts, but there are still gaps in our selection some time. These gaps will be closed soon. :)
Occasional.ly