Tinggly

For many people, gift-giving can be stressful. You can’t just ask someone what they want – then it seems like you don’t know them. So why not give them options?

Enter Tinggly, an online platform whose gift boxes are marketed with the slogan “One Gift. A World of Experiences.”

With Tinggly, you’re not just sending someone an e-card, you’re sending them a physical gift box containing thousands of experiences from which they get to choose. There are gift boxes for all sorts of occasions – birthdays, graduations, weddings, anniversaries and more. You can also send one to the “superman” or “superwoman” in your life.

But before you go gifting one of these boxes, there’s the advertised price to unwrap.

That’s because the advertised prices on the website, which vary depending on the box, don’t actually include the cost of the gift box – a fact that Tinggly fails to adequately disclose until checkout.

Even then, consumers have to manually select the gift box option – at an additional cost of $10 – to get the package delivered. Otherwise, the recipient will only receive an e-voucher, which is the preselected option and does not carry any additional charge.

Yet throughout the normal checkout process Tinggly represents that the gift box is included in the advertised price, as the following example shows:

It’s not until consumers arrive at the final checkout page that they are fully informed that if they want the advertised gift box, they are going to need to pay $10 extra.

On its homepage and product pages, Tinggly discloses the cost of the physical gift box but consumers have to dig for the information. The disclosure is buried on the homepage and on product pages, it is hidden behind a “packaging and delivery” tab about halfway down the page.

TINA.org looked into Tinggly after receiving a tip from a reader. In her submission, she shared part of an email exchange she had with a customer service agent who acknowledged that the website “should be clearer about the e-gift card and physical box being separate options, with the box available as a $10 add-on.”

In response to a request for comment, a Tinggly spokesperson said the term “gift box,” as used on the website, “refers to the product category itself – a curated collection of experiences the recipient can choose from – not necessarily the physical packaging.” But the spokesperson added that:

[W]e recognize the current presentation – particularly the product imagery and labeling – may leave some customers with the impression that the physical box is included in the advertised price. We’re actively reviewing how to present this more clearly so there’s no ambiguity for customers going forward.

The bottom line

When online shopping, always make sure to double check your order summary at checkout so that there aren’t any surprise charges and that you know what you’re actually paying for.

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