hw due in 12 hours

Date: 9/15/2017

To: New or Soon-to-be Brides

From: XXXXX XXXX

Subject: Places to Register for a Wedding

Anyone who has recently been married knows what a headache registering can be. There are so many things to remember and decisions to make, let alone where to register. I’m here to share my experiences with you for the next time you or someone you know decides to tie the knot. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when finding the right place to register; variety of product, ease of registering, price, and buyer ease. To keep things simple, I will focus on the two most common places I see on announcements; Target and Amazon.

Variety of Product

If you like the best of the best, top name, professional brands, then Target might not be the place for you. While Target has everything you will ever need, it doesn’t have the same variety Amazon has. Amazon has just about everything you could ever want-- if you know exactly what that is. I felt very overwhelmed because there were so many options to choose from. Because I had little experience with cookware, I didn’t even know where to begin with Amazon. There were so many different options with drastically different prices. I found myself spending too much time on review sites and doing my homework about each item to find the best. Something that did help me when it came to Amazon was a website called bestreviews.com this website was very easy to use and told you exactly what the best products on the market were in a compare and contrast forum.Target on the other hand had a few choices with good reviews on each so sifting through to find the best for me wasn’t as hard. Target’s products may not have been the best in the market, but they would get the job done and still be a quality product that will last.

Ease of Registering

From a user-friendly standpoint Target is the way to go. They offer a checklist that helps you keep track of the things you have already put on your registry. There is also an option to manually check items off that you have already received or aren’t in need of. This was very helpful for me because I didn’t know what I would need and it was laid out plain and simple for me. Amazon on the other hand was a little more difficult. Because it is such a huge website it can be difficult to navigate. I often had a hard time finding the list of things I had registered for. Their page of recommended wedding gifts was also unorganized and felt incomplete. Often times two of the same product were on the same page. Target made it easy to see what I had and even organized my items by category instead of in order of addition, making it easier to browse through.

Prices

With Amazon Prime becoming a staple in most homes, the prices of Amazon cannot be beat. Most customers get free shipping and Amazon pulls together many different vendors to find the very best price on the market. With that being said, there’s also a risk of registering for products that aren’t quality products and could even be counterfeit. Target’s prices are comparable but not for the quality of product. You can get a lot nicer product at Amazon for the same price as lower quality Target brand. As long as you’re doing your homework with Amazon brands, you can find better quality products for a better price.

Buyer Ease

Everyone has one of those old great aunts who is afraid to buy anything online, not to mention grandparents. Online shopping is still a foreign concept to a lot of the older generation. By registering somewhere with a physical location, such as Target, customers who aren’t comfortable with the online forum are still able to purchase a gift. I have also been in a situation where I forgot a wedding gift until the day of. As great as Amazon Prime is, they haven’t quite made it to one-day delivery. Having a place like Target is a great way to accommodate the technologically impaired and the procrastinators.

Bottom line, both are great places to register. It simply depends on how much homework you are willing to do. As someone who is busy with school, work, and planning a wedding all at the same, Target is much more efficient. It allows checklists for me to stay on track as well as keeping their product line lean enough to have options but not overwhelm. Both websites are user friendly for the buyer, but again, Target is friendly for those not comfortable with online shopping. Prices really are comparable however Amazon did tend to have better deals. The variety Amazon has to offer is both good and bad. It can be difficult to sift through all of the different products but if you have trusted brands that you already know and love it would be quite simple. Knowing your needs is the most important thing to remember when choosing where to register. After spending ten minutes on a website it’s easy to see if that website is going to meet your needs or not. Enjoy the wedding process and remember not to take it too seriously.