

Wedding Startup RegistryLove (YC S12) Lets Couples Register For Anything - Jerpo
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/16/yc-backed-wedding-startup-registrylove-lets-couples-register-for-anything/

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creativename
From their "Tour" page:

 _The fun part! Browse and shop our gorgeous gift catalogue filled with
inspiration and ideas and add things to your registry_

While their (more obscure) "How it Works" page says:

 _Find things you love on our gift database, or list gifts and services from
your favorite stores._

I think they could do a better job of making it clear that you can go and add
registry items from everywhere. And honestly, as someone who just got engaged,
I would probably be inclined to use Amazon Universal Registry if it came down
to it (as someone else mentioned).

Edit: Part of the confusion is that I skimmed the landing page and went right
to the bottom. I looked so quickly for the call to action that I skipped the
tag line! (Any Gift. Any Store. One Registry.)

~~~
thomasfl
"How it Works" for HN people is Ruby on Rails, google hosted webfont, twitter
bootstrap css and javascript.

Would like to know a bit more about the business side of it.

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w1ntermute
The most difficult part about getting into the wedding business as a startup
is _advertising_. People (hopefully) only get married once, and they're
usually too happy to go shopping around for deals. This is why wedding
businesses can rake in huge profits by ripping off their customers. You get
similar phenomena in the baby business and the funeral business (although with
the latter the lack of interest in comparison shopping is due to grief). So
RegistryLove's success will hinge largely on their ability to get the word out
to the general public.

~~~
patio11
The mortuary industry is also covered by state regulations designed to keep
out competition, justified by entirely specious public health reasons. For
example, it is illegal to import wooden boxes without a license in most
American states, if those boxes are intended to be either buried or burned.
Wooden boxes are well-understood commodity items which, if they had an OSHA
sheet, would be stamped "generally regarded as safe."

The bridal-industrial complex does not benefit from similar regulations, but
_not for want of trying_.

~~~
minikites
Honest question: could the wooden box license be intended to slow the
transport of pests via wood? Moving firewood that hasn't been heat treated has
been responsible for a lot of pest plagues in forests.

~~~
travisp
If so, it would be about moving wood that hasn't been heat treated. The law is
generally worded to specifically be related to the funeral business. There are
other laws that are similarly restrictive, such as a law in Louisiana that
prohibits anyone from selling "funeral merchandise" if not licensed:

[http://abcnews.go.com/Business/casket-making-monks-fight-
sel...](http://abcnews.go.com/Business/casket-making-monks-fight-sell-
wares/story?id=11489765)

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jschulenklopper
They could do some work on the (privacy) protection of those registries, for
example by making the URLs of registry a little harder to guess. (Yeah, I
know, adding obscurity instead of security, but nevertheless).

I wanted to see an example list, didn't knew a valid first and last name to
search for, so guessed <http://registrylove.com/registries/> and some low ID
number after that. Pronto!

I don't know if some Daisy & Javier mind that I can see their wishlist for
their wedding. Personally I would have wanted to keep that list a little more
private to only those people knowing I had registered my list at RegistryLove.

~~~
masterzora
I'll admit I haven't dealt with wedding registries much at all (really, I
watched somebody use a registry kiosk at a store once and that's about it) but
I was always under the impression that registries are generally pretty much
public.

~~~
Kerrick
You're right. If you know the first and last name of either the bride or the
groom, and the store at which they registered, you can access their registry.
This is by design--stores want it to be easy to find what the B&G want,
because they want it to be easy for you to buy something for them.

~~~
jschulenklopper
I could access a registry by guessing an ID (an ActiveRecord primary key, so
just an integer), not searching for names. Agreed, this isn't very useful, but
the list isn't protected/obscured if the URLs are that easy to guess.

For example, at Amazon Universal Wishlist, the ID of a valid wishlist is very
hard to guess -- like 6HV8XSTGDT3E7-difficult. On top, you can select whether
you want that list to be public (discoverable via name search), visible if one
knows the link, or private.

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tedchs
My engaged brother is using Amazon Universal Registry for this purpose -
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/universal>

~~~
Jerpo
We provide a personal concierge and service unparalleled by Amazon. Amazon
does have a large collection of item's but they don't partner with local
boutiques!

~~~
eli
(To be clear: the amazon service lets you add anything with a website, not
just items sold through the site)

~~~
MixWish
We're still in Beta, but <http://www.mixwish.com> allows you to add items from
any website as well. Similar concept to Amazon, but much easier to use.

~~~
heretohelp
This has gotten comically out of control and is probably saying something
about the wedding industry.

~~~
eli
Speaking of Amazon, you may enjoy: [http://www.amazon.com/One-Perfect-Day-
Selling-American/dp/15...](http://www.amazon.com/One-Perfect-Day-Selling-
American/dp/1594200882)

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jbenz
Based on the name and the vertical, I thought this was going to be another
site from the team behind <http://weddinginvitelove.com/>,
<http://weddingplannerlove.com/>, <http://weddingphotolove.com/>, etc... but
there appears to be no connection. Interesting to see that this naming
convention is becoming a pattern.

~~~
Geekette
I'm actually quite surprised that this team would use this name when another,
earlier company (WeddingLovely) has clearly established that naming pattern
for its own name and that of all its products/business lines as you mentioned
(WeddingInviteLove, WeddingPlannerLove, WeddingPhotoLove). If they did any
research on startups in this space, they must have come across WeddingLovely,
so why continue with this name choice?

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rwhitman
_None knew how to code, so Sofia taught herself... “At first we tried to hire
somebody, but we quickly realized that master coders are just not that
interested in the wedding market,” says Markia, “and we were like, well, we
could just sit here forever or we could just do it.”_

I advised a startup with a premium domain in the wedding space a few years
back. Both founders were non-tech founders, and they struggled day and night
to find a tech... anything. Lots of folks like myself offered little bits of
assistance and packages of discount consulting work but nobody was really
willing to commit and take the plunge as a tech cofounder. I'm sure this is a
common story. If you don't have a huge amount of capital investment its really
hard to rally tech folks behind bootstrapping something like this

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endtime
We've been using myregistry.com and have been perfectly happy with it.
MyRegistry syncs directly with several popular registries, and lets you add
anything not in one of those stores with a bookmarklet that intelligently
grabs name/price/etc. from the page you're on.

It doesn't sound like this doesn't anything significantly different, other
than having syncing with more stores (which is, admittedly, nice).

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benhoyt
Huh, interesting that it's YC-backed. It overlaps with my own website
<http://GiftyWeddings.com> \-- though mine is more of a gift list, where you
really can add any gifts you like (you just type them in, and optionally add a
web link).

One thing that really put me off trust-wise with Registry Love is the payment
page (for guests) is sent, and I think submitted, over clear-text HTTP, for
example <http://registrylove.com/carts/N/payment>

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petemack
Is the only difference between this and all the other gift registries like
<http://wantsthis.com> <http://wishpot.com> etc. that they handle
payment/customer service? I'd be curious to see how things like returns and
really odd items like "cash" are handled.

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Elessar
Is this international? I would recommend the service to friends but can't find
any list of which retailers are supported from the FAQ or About pages. I
suppose I could create an account and trudge deeper but honestly, I can't be
arsed to do that much work just to find out if Canada is supported and
advertise this to my friends.

~~~
marikachen
Hey there! We are currently focused on the SF Bay area, but we are expanding
very quickly! Depending on what they are looking for we may be able to
accommodate them immediately. I appreciate you considering suggesting us, and
would love to hear from you/or them at any time! Marika@registrylove.com

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fmcferran12
We launched this social feed feature today and play in this space:
<https://knackregistry.com/hot>

Instead of browsing through various retailers websites knackregistry.com has
set up a What’s Hot product feed so brides can easily see what friends and
other brides are adding to their Knack registries. When a bride finds
something she wants she just clicks the add to my registry button and the item
will be added from the feed to her registry.

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ernestipark
This would've been fantastic for my family member who got married recently.

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kumarski
Almost makes me want to get married....NOT. but cool shtuff.

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ukd1
Great idea, my sister would have loved this too!

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marikachen
Thanks! <3 Marika

