16 Themes, One Box, Two Gifts – Vivabox

My mom is super hard to shop for. It’s very hard for me to recall a Christmas where she didn’t want to return the gift she had received. After years of trial and error, my brother and I now resort to the go-to gift of Earl Grey tea. I suspect at some point,  my mom will get tired of getting Earl Grey tea and she will want to try something else. But then – what to get her?

I was recently told about a great new gift giving concept called Vivabox. Vivabox is a blend of both worlds in that I get to personally choose a gift, but my mom can still choose her own gift. Huh? I give her a present and she gets to choose what it is? Yup. Vivabox has been able leverage “it’s the thought that counts” so that my mom will end up with a gift that she wants.

To accomplish this amazing feat, first I have to choose the perfect theme for her. Vivabox currently has sixteen different gift boxes to choose from with several more set to come out this year – just in time for the holidays! The themes range from iPods to BBQs to wines, so you’re bound to find something that your picky gift recipient will like. Since my mom is a tea-lover, I would select the “Tea Time” Vivabox. The “Tea Time” Vivabox is $49.50 and includes 7 Numi organic teas. But that’s not all – here’s where the cool part comes in. It also comes with a Vivabox Gift card for one of their Tea Time Gift Set options. So once I proudly give my mom the gift, which will include the teas that she can start drinking right away, then she can go online and choose from one of 5 different tea-themed gift sets.

Here’s what the inside of the BBQ Vivabox that I received looked like. It came with a colorful catalog that pictured all of my BBQ options that I could choose from. The box came with 3 different BBQ seasons (which were used during the Meyer Natural Angus Beef testing) that were all delicious and were kept in place by a very nice ‘velvet’ looking piece of plastic.

You can see the Vivabox gift card right above the middle spice in the picture above. It’s very easy for gift recipients to choose their additional theme gift. They simply need to visit the V website, click on “Redeem a Vivabox” then select the vivabox they received. After that, it’s just four easy steps:

Step 1: Enter the code on your Vivabox Card

Step 2: Select the additional gift you would like to get.

Step 3: Enter in the shipping address – shipping is free!

Step 4: Submit the order.

Since I had the BBQ theme, I was able to choose from a selection of gourmet meats or some spice gift sets. There were 10 choices for me and I settled on the Asian Fusion Gift Set. I’d like to also mention that my theme gift options were very high quality. I was even able to find the Omaha Steaks gift options on the Omaha Steaks website.

I placed my Vivabox Gift order on 10/30. After a couple of weeks, it still hadn’t arrived, so I had an opportunity to test out their customer service. I sent an email at 9:18AM on a Friday morning; they wrote me back by 9:42AM; and by 12:39PM they had tracked down the issue to a computer glitch on their vendor’s side (so it wasn’t the Vivabox site.) On 11/16 I received a UPS Shipment notification from their customer service team and my Asian Fusion Gift Set was delivered on 11/17. I can’t complain about problems from a computer glitch – everything in their system said that it SHOULD have been sent out, and having worked with computers, I know that there are some times that they act wonky for no reason. I definitely think that Courtney of the Vivabox Team was very helpful, and I appreciated the timely response and quick resolution.

I’m a big fan of this gift giving concept. My thought still counts because I’m thinking about which theme to give. But beyond that, I’m also thinking “I’d really like my mom to get something that she LIKES.” So this is a more personal way than just giving a gift card to a tea-store. I mean, how much fun is it to sit by the Christmas tree and watching her open an envelope? Not much. With Vivabox she actually gets to open not just one, but two boxes!

Vivabox offers a great selection of gift boxes to ensure that the person you love gets a gift they’ll love. If you’d like to purchase a Vivabox, we’re happy to bring you a special Vivabox discount code just for our readers! Type in ‘viva09‘ (make sure you use all lowercase) during checkout and you will receive 10% off your order! It doesn’t expire until December 31, 2009 so you have plenty of time to get your holiday orders in.

Disclaimer: No compensation was given for this review/giveaway. I did receive a BBQ Vivabox for the purpose of this review. This did not influence my opinions.