gifting
Grouply for Reuse Groups
What is Online Gifting?
What is Grouply?
How Grouply Helps with Online Gifting
Grouply for Gifting Tutorials
Grouply for Gifting Yahoo Group
Group Owners: Promote Grouply to Your Gifting Groups!
Online Gifting Best Practices
What is Online Gifting?
There are over nine million worldwide participants in “online giftingâ€â€”the exchange of reusable goods in order to reduce waste and landfill and help save the planet! Online gifting is typically conducted within local groups — sometimes called “reuse groups” or “gifting groups” — and virtually all online gifting groups use an email list on Yahoo Groups as their online “marketplace†for exchanging goods. Many online gifting groups are assisted by parent organizations such as The Freecycle Networkâ„¢, ReUseIt Network, and WorldWideFreeshare. Visit the website of one of the parent organizations to locate and join an online gifting group near you!
What is Grouply?
Grouply is a free service that provides a better way to interact with your existing online groups like Yahoo Groups. Features such as Grouply Alerts, the Grouply Smart Digestâ„¢, and advanced search help you keep up with your groups in much less time. Grouply adds a social layer to help group members get to know each other better and build the community within the group. To find out more about the features and benefits of Grouply, take a tour!
Grouply will never spam you with ads, sell your email addresses, or misuse your group messages in any way. Grouply protects your privacy and keeps all your information safe. Grouply is free and takes just seconds to join. Register to use Grouply at http://www.grouply.com/register.php?code=gifting .
How Grouply Helps with Online Gifting
Email lists, while reliable, can be extremely inefficient for online gifting. For example, offering an item via email can be difficult due to complex posting rules, and you must constantly monitor your email inbox or risk missing out on an item that interests you.
Grouply Benefits Online Gifting Participants
Grouply provides a number of powerful tools to improve and simplify your experience with your existing reuse groups. If you’re on the lookout for a particular item, you can have Grouply send you a real-time Grouply Alert as soon as it’s posted so you can be the first to claim it! With Grouply’s Free Stuff template, you can quickly and easily post a properly formatted message to your reuse group.
| Member Complaint | Grouply Benefits for Reuse Group Participants |
| I miss out on items I want because I don’t have time to constantly monitor my inbox. | Set up a Grouply Alert and get notified as soon as the item you want is posted! |
| I don’t offer items as often as I’d like because the rules are so long and complicated. | Use Grouply’s Free Stuff template to post an item quickly and properly every time. |
| Someone has claimed the item I offered but I’m still getting contacted by people who want it. I forget what I’m supposed to do now. | Click the Mark as Taken button to automatically post a TAKEN notification that is properly formatted and associated with the original OFFER. |
| I belong to several reuse groups and it’s time-consuming to search or browse across all of them. | See all the postings from all of your reuse groups in a single list in Grouply, and search across all your groups at once. |
| I find myself constantly searching for the same item over and over again. | Set up a Saved Search in Grouply and run it next time with a single click. |
Grouply Benefits Reuse Group Owners
Grouply benefits reuse group owners, too! When members use Grouply, they participate more often, and owners don’t have to step in as much to enforce the rules.
| Owner Complaint | Grouply Benefits for Group Owners |
| My group is less active that I’d like because members find participation too cumbersome. | Grouply Alerts, the Free Stuff template and the Mark as Taken button make it easy to participate. |
| Members are confused and I spend too much time explaining the rules to them. | The Free Stuff template and the Mark as Taken button have the rules “built inâ€. |
These features for reuse owners are just a start. We are very interested in and responsive to feature requests from group owners. Please contact us at feedback@grouply.com .
Tutorials
A number of short video tutorials are available to demonstrate the features and benefits of using Grouply to participate in your reuse groups. Click a tutorial below.
Grouply for Gifting (3:17)
Grouply Alerts (2:02)
Grouply for Reuse Groups Yahoo Group
The Grouply for Reuse Groups Yahoo Group is a great source for information and tips on how best to use Grouply within your reuse groups. Visit the group’s home page in Yahoo Groups and click the “Join This Group!†button to join.
Group Owners: Promote Grouply to Your Reuse Groups!
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Grouply makes your gifting groups even better! Grouply users participate more often and are more satisifed with their gifting experience. As more group members use Grouply, group owners spend less time enforcing the rules. Everyone wins! Group owners can promote Grouply by placing the “Grouply for Gifting†logo on your home page in Yahoo Groups and by updating your group instructions to include Grouply.
To add the “Grouply for Gifting†logo to your Yahoo Group home page…
- From your group’s home page, select Management, then Description & Appearance.
- Next to Description, click Edit.
- Paste the following HTML code into the Description box where you would like the Grouply for Gifting logo to appear:
- Click Save Changes.
<p><a href="http://blog.grouply.com/gifting" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.grouply.com/img/grouply_gifting.gif" border="0"><alt="Click for details"></a></p>
To update your group’s instructions to reference Grouply…
- From your group’s home page in Yahoo Groups click Management, then Messages.
- Under Scheduled Messages, click the message that includes the instructions to group members on how to participate in your gifting group.
- In the appropriate place, add text directing users to the Grouply for Gifting page. For example:
- Click Save Changes.
Members of this group are encouraged to use Grouply, a free service that offers a better way to post and read messages in your existing Yahoo Groups. Grouply provides a number of tools to help participants in online gifting, in particular. For example, if you’re on the lookout for a particular item, you can have Grouply send you a real-time Grouply Alert as soon as it’s posted so you can be the first to claim it! With Grouply’s Free Stuff template, you can quickly and easily post a properly formatted message to your gifting group. Go to http://blog.grouply.com/gifting for more details on Grouply and Gifting. To sign up for Grouply, go to http://www.grouply.com/register.php?code=gifting .
Best Practices
To set up a Grouply Alert so you can be first to claim an item…
- Follow the steps under “To search for an item…†below to find matching items that have already been posted.
- Click the Create Alert button at the top of the page.
- In the Name field, give your alert a name, select the email address where you alert should be sent, and click Save.
- Now as soon as a new item is posted that matches your criteria, you will be sent an “alert†email so you can claim the item right away!
To offer an item to a reuse group…
- In Grouply, click “Post a Msg†and then select Free Stuff. The Free Stuff template includes all the fields you need and even fills some out for you!
- When you have finished entering your item details, click Submit. Your offer is posted to the group.
To notify the group that an item you offered has been claimed…
- In Grouply, click the My Profile tab to quickly see all the messages you have posted recently.
- Click the title for the item you offered that has been claimed.
- Click the “Mark as Taken†button. The item’s status in Grouply changes from Offered to Taken, and a pop-up dialog box displays an auto-generated message to be sent to the group.
- Edit the message if you like and click Send.
To browse new items in your reuse groups…
- In Grouply, click “See Recent Messages†at the top of any page.
- In the Add Filters box on the left of the Recent Messages page, expand the Group section by clicking the small “+†sign.
- Click None to de-select all groups, and select only your gifting groups. A list of all recent messages across all your gifting groups appears. Browse away!
- Click Save This Search at the top of the page.
- In the Name field, type “Recent gifting items†and click Save. Now from your Home page and various other places in Grouply you can click “Recent gifting items†and you will get a list of all the latest messages across all your gifting groups.
To search for a specific item in your reuse groups…
- Click the Home tab to go to the Home page.
- Under Saved Searches, click the “Recent gifting items†saved search that you created in the last section.
- In the Search for Message section on the left of the page, enter the item you are searching for (e.g., camera) and click the arrow to begin the search. A list appears of all postings in all your gifting groups that mention the item you are searching for.
To save a search for future access…
- Follow the steps above to search for an item.
- Click the Save This Search button at the top of the page.
- In the Name field, give your search a name and click Save.
- Now on your Home page and in various other places in Grouply, the name of your saved search will appear. Click it any time and you will get a list of all the messages that match your search criteria.