Wedding Registry App Lets Couples Add Items from Anywhere
April 17, 2014— -- Couples heading to the altar can now add items from multiple stores to one simple registry.
Brides-to-be can use their smartphones to scan the bar codes of products in any store or add links from online retailers with the new app from Zola, which launched today. And users aren’t limited to products –- they can also add dance lessons, wine tasting tours, cooking classes or honeymoon funds to their registry.
"We want couples to be able to register for anything they want – products, honeymoon cash, experiences,” Zola founder and CEO Shan-Lyn Ma told ABCNews.com.
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More than 10,000 couples have signed up since Zola launched its website in October. The new app, only available on iOS, adds a fun feature called Blender.
"It’s a quick and easy way to browse and add products to their wedding registry,” Ma said. “You swipe right to add and left to dismiss – similar to Tinder.”
The feature pulls products and experiences from multiple vendors, all sourced directly by Ma’s team.
“Our ultimate goal is to provide all the things someone might love to have with their fiancé, to create their lives together,” she said. "Whether that’s stuff for the kitchen or the home or a honeymoon."
The app is also more interactive than a traditional registry. Couples can create collections to group similar products together and also add comments to let friends and family know why they want a particular item.
Instead of posting a link to Bloomingdale’s or Bed, Bath and Beyond, couples share their Zola link.
"We found the vast majority of couples today have a wedding website of some kind,” Ma said. “So they post the link there.”
When friends or family find a gift they want to purchase, they pay through Zola’s website and the couple gets an alert those funds are in their account.
The couple makes the final purchase.
Ma acknowledged it’s an extra step, but says that way the couple can control when the product gets shipped.
"Couples said this was a big problem,” she said. “It was hard to plan when your gifts would arrive or manage the returns process. We found people were having boxes arrive unexpectedly. They weren’t sure if they wanted to open them, or keep them or return them. We developed a tracker so you can device when and what will be sent to you.”
The app is free and will expand to other mobile platforms within the next few months.
