May 26, 2015

By Debbie Luk, Research Consultant
 

Zola, Source: Zola

As a new bride going into the gift registry planning process last spring, I had no idea what to expect and where to start. I had a ton of questions swirling around in my head. What did my fiancé and I REALLY need?  What was the proper etiquette around registries?  How could I make it stress free for all?

We initially wanted to do a honeymoon registry. This gifting alternative allows guests to contribute towards a couple’s honeymoon rather than purchasing traditional gifts. My then-fiancé and I had amassed quite a bit of our own home supplies before we got engaged, (he had even more kitchen gadgets than I did) so needless to say, setting up a traditional registry didn’t initially seem necessary.

We did a search on the best honeymoon registries and found some interesting ones such as Merci Registry, Honeyfund, and Wanderable.  However, we didn't like the fees and payment options attached to using these sites (some had high credit card transaction fees or registry set up fees.) Additionally, some of these sites made the concept of a honeymoon registry, which is still unfamiliar to more traditional guests, seem confusing.

Source: Merci Registries, Honey Fund, & Wanderable

One site that kept coming up in our searches was Zola. Zola is an interesting concept because it combined a regular gift registry with a honeymoon registry (so those more traditional guests that would feel uncomfortable gifting towards the honeymoon could get us a gift instead.) Additionally, they have one of the lowest transaction fees for honeymoon funds.

Zola App, Source: Zola

Upon doing more research, we saw the site was getting good reviews and discovered that the founders of Zola were ex-Gilt employees, which is a retail site I love. This helped give the site more credibility. We decided to play around with setting up a registry and found it easy to use and visually appealing, which ultimately convinced us to take the plunge.  Below are some pros and cons that I encountered when using the site last spring:

Overall, once I had my registry set up on Zola, I was happy with how it helped me manage my registry items easily and on the go. In fact, after using Zola, some of my guests even mentioned they wished something like this had been available when they got married.

When I revisited Zola for this piece, I noticed they had actually addressed some of the things I wanted when I planned my registry. The following new functionality and content addressed many of my ‘Cons’:

Source: Zola

It’s really exciting to see they've addressed so many pain points in the past year. With some added tweaks to provide notifications on when items come back in stock, and offering some functionality across both the app and full site, Zola could provide even better registry management.

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