An interview with ‘What to Give’ just in time for the Holidays -

Although Christmas is not only about presents, there is definitely something special about gift giving. It is a gesture that should show appreciation, thought and care.

But the reality is that these days we are living such busy lives that we hardly have time to pick up our own groceries let alone put together carefully curated gifts for every special person we know.

This is where companies like What to Give can help, to alleviate the stress of the holiday season, and create beautiful gifts for your family, friends, and colleagues. Ultimately allowing you more time to spend with your loved ones and enjoy this very special time of the year.

The great thing is that What To Give can do all the work for you. Founder Chloe Passalaqua spends hours researching and selecting the best and most popular gifts for all occasions, whilst still providing options for all budgets.

Another thing we love about What To Give is their support for Australian businesses and environmental friendly products (all of their packaging is made from recycled material or is 100% recyclable after its use too).

The essence of What To Give is “gifting made easy”, and they provide quality, local Australian products and brands, premium and beautiful packaging, and a great service with fast delivery.

Today I interviewed Chloe Passalaqua, founder of What to Give As we talk about her business, and what really makes a special gift.

Read on below.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how/why you started ‘What to Give’

I’ve always grown up wanting to one day have my own business, but was just never sure what that would be. Then I stumbled into creating ‘What to Give’ around the time our social circle started having lots of engagement parties, weddings, 30th’s etc. and there became a higher demand for us to be finding suitable gifts for these occasions.

I have always been obsessed with buying gifts for people and have been told I am a great gift giver, so I decided to source all my products from my favourite go-to Australian brands and turn them into beautiful gift boxes.

I was also working in an Architectural Sales role at the time where it was common to buy end of year gifts for clients and I just was not happy with the options out there. It was then I saw the opportunity to design gifts worth giving, because who really wants a hamper with jams and apricots?

Can you tell us a little bit about how you put your packages together for clients

Our aim is to make the gifting experience easy, so we have a user friendly website to purchase our pre-made gift boxes online. We also offer the option to DM or email us to create a custom gift box for those more daring. We will work together with your budget to create something beautiful that will be suitable for the occasion and loved by the receiver.

As an alternative to hampers, we also offer custom corporate gift boxes for businesses wishing to thank their clients or just give an end of year Christmas gift.

What are some of your top tips on finding the perfect gift for that special someone?

Although it can be difficult to find the right gift for someone, especially if it is for someone you’re not that close to, I think everyone does have an idea between choices of what will be most suitable for that person. It’s more just about being guided to a smaller pool of options. We have put a lot of research into sourcing the best products from reputable Australian brands, and have compiled these into gift boxes sorted by occasion or size (budget). This makes it easy and does not overwhelm the purchaser with too many choices. They can then be confident in knowing that their chosen gift box only contains beautiful, high quality products that their receiver will absolutely love and enjoy.

What do you think are some examples of great Secret Santa gifts?

This is a tricky one because it depends on the audience! I think it is always safe and smart to go with something that is practical and also fairly generic in it’s style if you don’t know your Secret Santa receiver very well. Some of our small gift boxes are great for this as they only contain 2 or 3 items which are suitable to almost everyone, and they are very practical. We can also create a small custom gift box for Secret Santa gifts if there are a few items you would like to combine.

As fun as silly gifts are, they are often never used and wasted – I believe it better to spend your money on a gift that will be used and loved, as well as being mindful of how we consume and the rate we throw things out.

What would be your ideal project?

I want the receivers of our gift boxes to be absolutely wowed with the premium packaging, presentation, and products we offer, and I would love the opportunity to work with a corporate client that would like to go all out on their gifts and put together some really bespoke gift boxes with some interesting products. I would also love to provide gift boxes for big launch events or fashion/interiors event shows.

Apart from that, I just love being able to be the person that helps send love and gifts around the country to friends and family. Writing the little “A Gift For You” gift tag note is my favourite part as I get to see where my gift is going and what it is for. It is so heart warming to know that I am helping people send gifts to loved ones who live interstate and can’t be there in person. I even get orders from Australians living overseas that want to send something to loved ones back home!

Where are some of your favourite places to shop for gifts?

All of the products we have sourced for our gift boxes are my most favourite Australian brands to buy for gifts. They have great purpose, are ethically responsible, create beautiful and high quality products, and I know that they are well known and reputable so that our customers can rely on the fact they are gifting something great. I also just love to support other small Australian businesses such as my own! Most of our suppliers such as Bahen & Co, Salus Body, Hunter Lab, Posh Plonk, Frankly Eco etc. are all made here in Australia too which is my aim where possible.