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Top Gift Registry Tips: Registering Strategically

February 7th, 2019
Top Gift Registry Tips: Registering Strategically

It seems pretty straightforward—just start registering for gifts… right?

But then you sit down, create an account on Blueprint, choose your registry type, and all of a sudden your brain freezes. Where do you even start? What do you even need? How do you get in the right mindset? Now you’re overwhelmed and all you want to do is close your laptop and deal with your registry another time.

We get it. Having to think that far into the future—and in the midst of planning for a wedding, baby, or other big life event—sometimes feels like too much work. Luckily, we’ve seen this before and have some ideas to help you break up the work, help you focus, and make sure you actually enjoy the whole registry process. Because after all, registering should be fun!


Tips for Strategically Tackling Your Gift Registry

Find a general checklist

At Blueprint, our goal is to make registering for gifts as seamless as possible. If you’re not sure where to begin, start with our curated collections, wedding or baby checklists, and even our sample registries. If those starting points still aren’t cutting it, start with a general checklist for yourself and then fine tune it.

If you’re building a registry with a partner, don’t start without them. Being on the same page from the beginning will save potential headaches later. Think about your big picture goals:

  • Do you want to furnish or upgrade elements in your home? Or do you need all new things?
  • Do you have to put together a nursery?
  • Do you want to fund your future (home down payment, honeymoon, baby’s college fund)?
  • Or are you more interested in using your registry for experience-based gifts (sports games, cooking classes, baby music classes)?

With your overarching goals in mind, you can start listing specific gifts that loved ones can contribute to to help you get there.

Start shopping!

Most people love the idea of building your dream wishlist, This step will likely take some time, so carve out an hour or two of your day, grab a snack and a cuppa tea, and let the fun begin.

We believe it’s best—and easiest—to start your shopping room by room. Start in the kitchen (always a favorite), gather all the items you need, and move on to the bedroom. Keep going until you’ve registered gifts for every room. Even if furnishing your home isn’t your priority, you’d be surprised at how many nooks, crannies, and forgotten spaces you may have.

Once you feel confident you’ve done enough shopping for a room, feel free to move on to the next room. To make it even easier on our users, our catalog on Blueprint is searchable by room, item type, retailers and brands, and even style.

via GIPHY

If you’re wondering how many gifts your registry should have, we’ve got the formula for that, too. Make sure you have at least enough gifts for the number of guests you’re expecting, and up to 1.5 times that much (for example, 100 guests multiplied by 1.5 = 150 gifts). We suggest breaking up your total number of gifts into three price point categories, with ⅓ below $50, another ⅓ between $50-$100, and the last ⅓ $100+).

A curated shopping experience

Blueprint Collections are curated lists of our most popular gifts, where you can add items to your registry or add them all with one click. Some of our most popular registry collections are:

We’re constantly updating and adding new collections, so be sure to check back to see if there are any new gifts or collections that spark your fancy.

On our blog, Blueprint Guides, we created a variety of sample wedding or baby registries, depending on different lifestyles. Each sample registrant has a goal in mind for their registry, and chose gifts that help them accomplish that goal. So many of our users have found our sample registries to be a valuable resource.

We also published ultimate registry checklists for wedding and baby, listing popular gifts with links to our favorite products in our catalog. But what happens when you’d like to do a little more research on a specific gift, like blenders or strollers? That’s when our product reviews swoop in to save the day. We dug deep to research and review the best of the best products, so you don’t have to. You can find reviews for everything from pressure cookers to cloth diapers, and so much more. Your time is precious, so let us do the research legwork for you.

Cash gifts are for everyone!

Let’s say after browsing physical gifts, you’re still a bit unsure of what you want. You’re definitely sure you want to set up a registry, but just don’t have the time (or patience) to shop around for a specific gift. In this case, we recommend setting up cash gifts.

Cash gifts are a win-win for everyone—guests can easily contribute to a fund of your choice (a new bedroom set, double stroller, honeymoon car rental, etc.), and you can use the funds to buy the item at a later date. Some of the most popular cash gifts we see are for a new sofa or a new bed, since people generally like to try them out before buying.

Also consider adding cash gifts for services, like house cleaning, laundry, and food delivery. Imagine going on your honeymoon or babymoon, and coming back to a absolutely tidy home. Bliss. And funny enough, we also see tons of custom cash gifts for the occasional pizza delivery night.

Relax + take breaks

Our final strategy for beginning a registry is to take it easy. Try breaking the registry shopping into a few different days and times. Don’t worry about trying to complete a registry from start to finish in one day. Registering for gifts can seem straightforward at face value, but if you really want to build a registry that suits your needs, sometimes it takes a little patience.

Try focusing on two rooms per day, a certain number of gifts (depending on the number of guests you’re expecting, or a specific type of gift (physical, cash, etc.) in one sitting. Take a break (or several), and come back with a fresh mind. You’ll have the perfect registry in no time at all.

Just checking in

Once you’ve gotten to a place where you feel your registry is complete, you’re free to start sharing your custom URL with loved ones who ask for it or on your wedding website (check out our post on registry etiquette for more on this). Check on your registry and gifts periodically on your dashboard so you can check on progress and make any changes. You may even notice some shopping trends. For example, your friends and family seem to be snatching up all the gifts under $50—it’s probably be a good idea to add some more!


Final Thoughts

Planning the details of a life event is stressful enough. Registering should be fun and productive, and it will be with a little push in the right direction and the right mindset. We believe our tried and true strategy tips will help your registry get to where it needs to be, but don’t forget our Concierge Team and Help Center are here for you every step of the way.

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