Over £100 million wasted on children's birthday presents each year

Research into the children's birthday market has revealed that a staggering £845 million is spent on birthday presents in the UK every year; over £100 million of which is wasted on gifts that are unwanted, unused or duplicates.

This could, however, be a thing of the past, following the launch of a revolutionary online children’s birthday present service, with a charitable twist.

The first of its kind in the world, timto – ‘there is more to birthdays’ – established by young entrepreneur Luke Cornish, is a website that allows children to create a gift list of their ideal birthday presents and encourages them to give a proportion of their fund to a charity they identify with.  

The unique service allows parents to set up their child’s free online birthday account, providing guests with an opportunity to contribute to collective birthday presents for the child, rather than giving small individual gifts.

The service works to ensure that children receive the presents that they want, and converts the money which is usually spent on unused gifts, into a charitable donation.

Now a Corporate Member of the Institute of Fundraising, Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) and the Good Fundraising Code, the online service timto.co.uk, is working in association with household names such as Amazon.co.uk, The Entertainer, Early Learning Centre and Mothercare, to provide products and high street vouchers for the online timto shop, as well as providing experience tasters via Red Letter Days. 

timto has also forged links with charities UK wide including NSPCC, WWF-UK and Help for Heroes. The child and their parent s can donate to any registered charity including the child’s own school PTA, giving the service the ability to contribute to the family’s local community.

Mr Cornish said: “With an estimated 6.5 million birthday parties held annually, the demand for the latest trends in gadgets and gismos is felt by parents globally. In a time when we are advised to tighten the purse-strings and sit tight through economic adversities, you would be forgiven for struggling to sit comfortably with the idea that hundreds of our hard-earned pounds are each year being wasted on gifts that will receive little more than five minutes of our children’s attention.

“timto is the answer to this. The service rids parents and families of the need to waste time and money sourcing and gift wrapping presents which are likely to be neglected by the child. Instead, busy mums and dads can use the online service to spend money wisely on the things that the children themselves have selected, with the added opportunity of donating a sum to the child’s chosen charity, safe in the knowledge that the cause will benefit directly from every penny of the amount donated.”

Based in south Wales, the company aims to raise £4million for charities across the UK in the next three years, with the long term objective of being identified as a major fundraising website. Starting with the children’s party market, there are plans to also branch out internationally as well as servicing different markets, including adult celebrations such as anniversaries, birthdays and retirements.

Mr Cornish continued: “Feedback from the charities we are working with has been extremely positive, highlighting two clear benefits. Firstly, it provides an entirely new stream of funding for good causes, which is vital in the current economic climate and secondly, it educates a new generation of young people about the true value of a gift and encourages them to support people less fortunate than themselves.
“For us, our long term objective is to be identified as a major fundraising website in the UK and to expand the business to take on an international market”. 

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