Giving gifts should be easy, fun, and social.  Here are 7 ways you can team up with friends to deliver awesome gifts:

1. Group contributions together with friends and enable bigger and better gifts.
2. Get lots of people to suggest unique gift ideas and unleash brainstorm power!
3. Get someone (or something!) to guarantee the gift will be awesome.
4. Have a middleman manage money and scale the gift purchase according to whatever people pitch in.
5. Find a specialist in group gift buying.  Ideally a PhD in Giftology, if you can find one.
6. Let an expert pick the gift, manage shipping, and save yourself time.
7. Have fun and try unique gift experiences.

If you already do all of these things, you must be superhuman.  If not, be one of the first, the proud, the enlightened.  Feed me!

-The Mystery Gift Machine

P.S. I’ve been working quietly on some upgrades.  Connect on Facebook or Twitter and become the greatest gift giver in the galaxy. 

A cheat-sheet for anyone who has ever wanted to give better gifts.  Try to avoid:

1. Spending as an individual.  You can only afford so much.  Partner up with real friends, Facebook friends, even rich relatives.  Mo’ money, more options.
2. Being afraid to experiment.  Don’t be terrified to take a chance. Trying something new can be fun for both you and your lucky gift recipient.
3. Procrastinating and rushing.  If you don’t have time to shop very carefully, consider an assist from someone or something that can help.
4. Shopping wastefully.  I already said haste makes waste.  You’re allowed to find good value, especially if you've got time to shop around.
5. Brainstorming alone.  Get other people to suggest ideas, then pick the best or combine among many.  Specific ideas are nice to have, not required.  Just don't end up...
6. Doing nothing.  If you’re worried you might end up with nothing but guilt, find a service that picks, wraps and ships gifts for you.

If avoiding these 6 mistakes sounds like a lot of work,  you’re right.  Luckily you now have me, the Best Gift Giving Machine in the Universe.

Fill out my Mystery Gift Setup the next time you’re thinking of giving a gift.  It takes 19 seconds to fill out and it's free to get started.  I’ll follow these steps, I’ll make gifting easy, and I’ll make it fun.  If you “Like” this post, “Like” my Facebook Page!  Sharing is caring.


Until next time,

The Mystery Gift Machine

P.S. Follow me on Twitter @MrEGiftMachine for a bonus tip, the Paradox of Gift Giving. It might surprise you!

I’m proud to introduce what might be the most exciting innovation in the history of gifting, the Group Mystery Gift.  Gifting is now bigger, better, and more fun than ever before.

I recently sent multiple gifts to the same person at the same time (see our last blog post), and I couldn’t help but wonder why the senders didn’t ask me to combine their Mystery efforts into one giant group gift.  What’s a Gift Machine to do?  Invent the Group Mystery Gift!

For our very first Group Mystery Gift, we collected contributions from 7 people living in 3 countries and shipped over $200 of amazing gifts.

From here on out, I’ll be collecting group money and group idea input before I ship Mystery Gifts.  The Group Mystery Gift Machine:

• Uses group money to buy bigger and group input to buy better than any individual sender could possibly do own their own
• Makes gifts for birthdays easier and more fun than ever before.  Engagement presents, graduations, Bar Mitzvahs: all great Group Mystery Gift occasions

As my blog readers and my biggest fans, you deserve the very first opportunity to set up a Group Mystery Gift.  Just click through to my Mystery Gift Setup and I’ll get things going!

-The Mystery Gift Machine

One lucky Machine operator has managed to receive SIX different surprises just weeks into the great Mystery Gift experiment.

After posting the following status update to Facebook...
"I have successfully sent 2 awesome gifts using Mystery Gift Machine, and now I want someone to send one to me. pretty please.. with a cherry on top!"
6 different items were sent in response that same week.  Check out this snapshot:

Can you guess some of gift suggestions?  

-The Mystery Gift Machine

I'm trying to learn how I can help people trust me.  I've been picking gifts since before you were born.  I've sent great gifts across North America and saved the day over and over.

My features?

• I handle shipping
• I always find good value
• I make the purchase process so easy it's painful

Gift giver benefits?

• You get all the credit for being a great and savvy gift giver
• You save time on picking and shipping. And the recipient can return it if it's not just right
• You get a fun surprise too :)

I'm going to go oil my parts.

-The Mystery Gift Machine

I love gift shopping, it's my favorite

My choices make people happy, and who likes to lead group gifts anyhow?   Just feed me gift recommendations and gift ideas, and I'll do the rest.

I got my PhD in Giftology so I can select awesome gifts.  I'm excited to ship!

-Mystery Gift Machine