Frequently Asked Questions

These are four easy steps to creating your GiftSpaces registry – have a look at how simple it is on our 'How it Works' page or get started now. 

1. IMAGINE IT - Explore our Inspiration GiftSpaces or dream up anything at all you'd like - nothing is off limits.
2. CREATE IT - Create your GiftSpaces registry and personalize it with photos, messages and wish list items using one of our beautiful templates. Add gifts with a single click from our inspiration collections or simply create your own.
3. SHARE IT - Share your unique GiftSpaces URL with friends and family. They can easily contribute towards your gifts via credit card from anywhere in the world, just like any other online purchase - no hassle with bank transfers or clunky payment methods.
4. LIVE IT - You get the cash to purchase your gifts! Monitor your gift contributions and then have them deposited straight into your bank account at a frequency set by you - daily, weekly or monthly.

We believe that gift giving should be about more than just stuff. We all dream bigger than that and the reality is that most people already have enough small kitchen items and housewares - the type of things traditional gift registries offer. We also know the things you’re really passionate about probably can't be bought in a single store such as experiences, world travel, buying your first home, outdoor activities, art, education - the list goes on.

Enter GiftSpaces – an easy-to-use, beautifully designed, online custom registry that will help you curate all the unique gifts you'd like and make them a reality with the help of your friends and family.

Hi – we’re Caroline and Michelle. We live in Toronto, Canada and head up the GiftSpaces team. You can contact us at any time by email, Facebook or Skype (although we do like to sleep for at least a few hours every night). Hop over to Who We Are to read more about us. Security is our number one priority and we’ve teamed up with WePay to make sure the GiftSpaces experience is the safest and best possible. WePay is a trusted payment processor operating throughout the USA and Canada and is used by thousands of companies.

Very, the security of your funds is our absolute, number one priority. Otherwise we wouldn't be in business! Your GiftSpace features the best in secure payment encryption technology. We partner with WePay – a well-known, PCI compliant, integrated payment processor – to process all gift contributions. They operate extensively throughout the USA and Canada and are the payment processing partner of choice for thousands of online, reputable businesses.

Your Contributors' online payments are conducted securely and they go directly into your personal WePay account - we never touch your money. It's safely stored in your WePay account until you’re ready to set up automated deposits into your bank account via electronic bank transfer. We provide you with full reporting features so that you know, at all times, how much money you’ve been gifted.

Read more about the Payments Process and WePay's commitment to security.

Security is our number one priority so we use 256-bit SSL certification. Put simply, this means that there’s encryption between your web browser and our web server, which allows your personal information to be securely transmitted over the internet. Look out for the lock symbol or “https” in the URL line.

No we don't. We decided that getting users to spend a few moments re-supplying credit card information if they wish to make another gift contribution would be better than storing credit card details. Security is our top priority.

Our business model allows users to sign up, create a GiftSpace page and receive contributions from their Contributors – for free. So to ensure that Contributors enjoy a transparent and easy gifting experience with no adverts or expensive wire transfer fees, we charge Contributors a small 2.5% admin fee to keep our lights on, plus there's a WePay payment processing fee. The total cost is 5.4% plus 30c per transaction which are some of the lowest fees amongst competitors and substantially less than what you'd typically be charged for shipping and gift wrapping on a traditional online gift purchase.

See more information on our Payments Process page.

There is no tax charged on the actual amount gifted and if you do not reside in Canada you are tax exempt, which means there will not be any tax charged at checkout!

We do have to collect tax on the 2.5% service fee charged by GiftSpaces, for any contributions made by residents of Canada. This amount is always really minimal and is calculated based on the GST / HST rate of the province in which you reside. It means that on a typical $100 gift contribution, we charge $2.50 in service fees, so you would pay around 33 cents in tax. 

We've found that most friends and family contributing to a GiftSpace are happy to pay a small fee for the convenience of buying a gift online and simply paying by credit card, avoiding the hassle of clunky payment methods and cash in envelopes for you to manage. They also get to personalize their gift and contribute to something meaningful for you, rather than just handing over money which many don't like.

The fee is less than shipping and handling on a normal gift and most people would rather you receive the full amount of the funds gifted, rather than having a big portion taken at the end. It means the fee is spread out in small allotments amongst each Contributor - so on a $50 gift they pay $53 and a $100 gift they pay $105.70 - other similar websites can take hundreds from you at the close of your registry.

However, if people really don't like paying a fee they still have options. They can give you cash or arrange a separate payment method. Also because Contributors have 100% control over how much they give, if they are working to a set budget they can adjust their gift payment to so that even with fees, they still pay the total amount they intended.

We thought long and hard about how we could create a model that worked best for everyone and think this is it, however we are always looking for feedback so don't hesitate to get in touch with us if you'd like to chat.

Wedding, engagement, honeymoon, new baby, birthday - anything you want! You can use it for yourself or even set up a GiftSpaces registry for a friend or a loved one during life’s best bits – things like weddings, baby showers, birthdays, graduations, retirement – any time where you’d love your friends and family to contribute to make dreams a reality.

It depends on your occasion. Do you have an overall vision that you’d like contributions to go towards such as a honeymoon or kitchen renovation? Or do you have specific gifts in mind that you’d like people to contribute towards?

The Single Gift Board template showcases ideas for what the overall dream could look like. A beautiful digital vision board, its perfect for illustrating your goal. Your contributors contribute to help you achieve this vision. Do you want a Honeymoon in Thailand? Then use the Single Gift Board template to upload lots of beautiful imagery of the amazing Thai adventure that you want to have. Or are you looking to pool funds with friends to shout your bestie a new scooter for their birthday? In that case, you can use the Single Gift Board template to upload multiple images of the scooter that you want to get them, including images of the road trips they can take or them zipping around the city.

Take a look at our Sample Single Gift Board template.

The Multiple Gift Board template works like a traditional gift registry, in that you can breakdown your vision into individual and group gifts. Contributors contribute towards a specific item rather than one total vision. You may want specific items for your wedding, in which case you would create a separate "gift" for each - a house fund, a couch-set, a Kitchen aid - and your friends would chose which gift they wanted to contribute money towards. You can also use this template if you are creating a GiftSpace for a friend - you might want to send them away for a weekend to experience the magic of Quebec City, so why not upload a "gift" that represents the hotel room, a "gift" to cover their flights, and a third for breakfast in bed. Your friends can chose which piece of the weekend they want to contribute towards. 

Take a look at our Sample Multiple Gift Board template.

It’s completely up to you. If you’re getting married and already have a house full of stuff, but are longing for a honeymoon or to buy your own home, create a gift that represents these items. Or if you’re graduating and have a dream of how you’re looking to spend the new few years, use the Single Gift Board template to upload multiple images that best represent your dream – travel, language classes, a laptop… Stuck for ideas? Browse through our Inspiration GiftSpaces.

We’d love to – and we’re working on it. Hopefully soon we’ll have the ability to make your charity contributions go direct to the charity – contact us if you’d like to know when this feature is available.

There are two easy ways. But first make sure you’ve chosen the Multi Gift Board template, as this is the one that allows your Gifters to contribute to specific gifts.

Either create a gift yourself by adding a name, uploading an image, writing a description and entering a price. Or add a gift from one of our Inspiration GiftSpaces. Simply browse the gifts within one of our collections and click the “Add to GiftSpace” button that you can find on every gift example.

A Group Gift is a gift that you create when using a Multi Gift Board template, that you feel is too big to be contributed towards by just one person. For example, if you’d love a scooter, you can mark it as a Group Gift and multiple contributors can contribute towards it – not just one (very generous) contributor.

No, not at all – you get every cent that’s contributed towards your GiftSpace, regardless of whether entire gifts are fulfilled.

It’s entirely up to you and it depends on the event, however your total GiftSpace can't be worth more than $30,000. Our advice is to think of the typical amount you’d expect one of your Contributors to contribute, and then multiply that amount by the number of Contributors you’ll be inviting to your GiftSpace. Keep an eye on your GiftSpace – if it looks like you’re reaching your limit and your gifts are being bought up, add some more gifts or raise the price of your group gifts. You wouldn’t want your Contributors to miss out on contributing. For wedding, we generally suggest you allow $100 - $150 per guest.

No, we don’t list GiftSpaces on our site so the general public won’t have access to your GiftSpace. Anyone who has your unique GiftSpace page URL will be able to access your page though, so keep your link safe.

Absolutely! Whether it be to pool funds for a friend's birthday, a leaving party - you name it - GiftSpaces can be used for those celebrations too.

Create the GiftSpace like usual, including an image of your friend if you wish, and then set up your WePay account to collect the funds into your bank account. Once you have collected all of the contributions, you can purchase the gift, and surprise your friend!

Before you can share your finished GiftSpace with your friends and family it, you need to publish it and create your WePay account to allow you to start accepting payments.

Simply click the “Set Up WePay Now” button on your GiftSpace page and you will be asked to create a WePay account using your name, email address and to set a password (which isn’t connected to GiftSpaces - we’ll never have access to your WePay account). You can then either choose to verify your account and link your bank account, or you can skip those steps and proceed with publishing your GiftSpace and getting it out there to your friends and family.

Remember; you do need to complete the verification steps and link your bank account within 30 days of receiving contributions, so the sooner you do it, the better. See more information on the Payments Process.

Anyone with a credit card! Friends, family members, loved one, co-workers, classmates, teammates, your dog (ok, maybe not the dog).

It’s easy to use - your friends and family contribute via credit card, just like any other online purchase. There's no need for a PayPal account or clunky wire transfers.

They’ll feel more connected to you and their gift seeing your vision for your next chapter and they’ll feel great knowing they are getting you something meaningful that you really want.

Yep definitely, you’re not limited to Canadians – your GiftSpace is able to accept contributions from all around the world.

Don’t worry – ask them to get in touch with us and we’ll arrange their gift contribution for them.

Although we love the idea of super generous anonymous donors, we want to give your Contributors well-deserved recognition for their generosity and you to be able to see who’s given you what. Contributors will not be able to see other people's gifts however.

Sign up for our gift contribution notifications and you’ll be emailed each time a contribution is made to your GiftSpace.

You can also always access your Contributions History page at any time – it’ll detail the contributions made, by who and for how much.

It’ll show as “purchased” on your GiftSpace page so you and your Contributors know that it’s already been contributed towards, but it’ll still remain visible in your GiftSpace.

Make sure you have finished your WePay verification process and have linked your bank account, so that any funds that have been contributed towards your GiftSpace can be paid out to you. Then send us a note and we will close down your GiftSpace page. Unfortunately we can’t process refunds for your Contributors – you’ll need to do that.

Once you have set up your GiftSpace and have created your WePay account, you can start collecting contributions straight away.

WePay requires you to confirm your email address within 14 days of creating your WePay account, so make sure you look out for this email from them. Please contact us if you do not receive this email, or have trouble confirming your email address.

You will also be prompted to set up your funds transfer process, which can be done at any time, however must be completed within 30 days of receiving your first contribution.

This happens in two easy steps:

1. Enter some basic information so that we can verify your identity: full name, email address, phone number and SIN.
2. Enter your bank account information so that WePay can transfer your money directly into your account. It's at this point that you will set deposits to happen automatically on a schedule determined by you - daily, weekly or monthly.
   

Read more about this process on our Payments Process page.

Usually 2-5 business days, depending on your bank’s processing speed.

if the funds haven’t arrived in your bank within 5 business days, please let us know and we will look into it for you straight away. You can also contact WePay directly at [email protected]. 

Our payment processor WePay requires you to supply this to make your transfers really secure. WePay uses your SIN to verify your identity before depositing funds into your account.

As with the rest of your banking and personal information, your data isn’t stored anywhere on GiftSpaces.

Read more about WePay's commitment to security.

Sure – either set up the deposits to go into your account and then pass them onto your friend, or you can give your friend access to set up the WePay account themselves. If you are setting up a GiftSpace as a surprise for someone, best you collect the money yourself and then purchase the gift for them. Contact us if you want to talk through your options.

We have a variety of precautions that discourage fraudulent activity on the site, but we strongly recommend that you only contribute to people you personally know and trust.

The only way to access a GiftSpace is by using the unique URL – request it directly from the person who created the page.

A Group Gift is a gift that can be contributed to by a number of people, not just one (super generous) person. It’s typically a large gift that may be a bit expensive for one person to contribute to – think round the world flights or a 3D TV. You decide how much you want to contribute, and other people contribute the rest.

Absolutely not – they get every cent that’s contributed towards their GiftSpace, regardless of whether the entire gift is bought.

GIftSpaces has been designed and developed to offer the best experience on desktop and laptop computers for now, with plans to optimize the experience for mobile and tablet devices in the future. People can use the website from their phones, it just hasn't been designed specifically to do so - yet!

Not yet, but we may look into it in the future. We want GiftSpaces to be as transparent as possible and for the GiftSpace creator to be able to give you the heartfelt thanks you deserve for your generosity.

Yes – if you have a Visa or Mastercard you’ll be able to make gift contributions through GiftSpaces, regardless of where in the world you are.

We accept Visa and Mastercards from anywhere in the world.

Yes, we’ll email you a receipt after you’ve completed your purchase.

Absolutely not. We think that getting you to spend a few moments re-supplying your credit card information if you wish to make another gift contribution is way better than having your credit card details saved on our system.

Our business model allows users to sign up, create a GiftSpace page and receive contributions from their Contributors – for free. So to ensure that you enjoy a transparent and easy gifting experience with no adverts or expensive wire transfer fees, we charge a small 2.5% fee to keep our lights on, and a fee for WePay (our payment processor) to process your payment straight to the gift recipient. The total cost is 5.4% plus 30c per transaction which are some of the lowest fees amongst competitors and substantially less than what you'd typically be charged for shipping and gift wrapping on a traditional online gift purchase.

It's a pay-as-you-go model, breaking the cost into small chunks so that the gift recipients get the full amount gifted and aren't hit with a massive fee at the close of their registry - which some similar websites do.

See more information on our Payments Process page.

Nope, absolutely not. In fact you don't need to create an account at all to make a purchase. Just select what you want to contribute towards, say how much, enter your credit card and billing details, and you're good to go!

We’re always looking out for new features and have our own ideas for what the future for GiftSpaces holds – but we’d love to hear your suggestions too. Feel free to contact us with your ideas, or to say hi.

Some ideas we’re currently exploring:

1. Creating a mobile app to make contributing on mobile super easy
2. The ability for GiftSpace creators to send thank you cards to their Contributors
3. The ability for a Contributor to leave a video message for the GiftSpace creator - so they can see your pretty face if you can’t make their big occasion in person
4. The ability for Contributors to make an anonymous contribution
5. The ability for charity donations to go directly to the charity
6. Giving GiftSpace creators the option of paying the processing and admin fee rather than their Contributors

Yes, we absolutely can! While our platform isn't set up to perfectly support these kinds of projects (yet!), we do have some work arounds that allow you to create a GiftSpace to collect financial contributions towards products, or showcase items that you'd like in-kind donations of. Contact us to find out more or to discuss options for waiving the 2.5% admin fee.