Target has revamped its wedding registry in a nod to a trend of couples just as interested these days in asking friends to buy them massages and wine-tasting tours on their honeymoons as a new blender or bath towels.
The Minneapolis-based retailer has partnered with Honeyfund, one of the leading websites and apps in this space, to allow customers who sign up for a Target registry to do both at the same time.
Customers can request various items from Target plus help fund various parts of their honeymoon through Honeyfund. The gift wish list will then be displayed in one place for givers to peruse and purchase.
It's one of the latest ways retailers are acknowledging consumers' growing interest in spending money on experiences such as traveling and going to concerts — sometimes at the expense of buying another sweater or a new pair of boots.
"We got a call from Target's head of registry a year and a half ago wanting to explore some options, and Target is one of the top-five registries in the country," said Sara Margulis, CEO of Honeyfund. "We saw it as an opportunity to expand the Honeyfund website, which we found really intriguing."
While Honeyfund already offered an option to link to retailers' registries, Target is the first retailer to embed Honeyfund into its registry.
"Our registry team wanted to make sure we were providing a modern experience," said Jamie Bastian, a Target spokeswoman.
Target has made other recent updates to its registries, including a partnership with Pinterest. With that option, users send pictures of an item to the Target app, and it recommends products in its inventory that resemble that photo.
Honeyfund, which launched in 2006, rose to prominence in 2014 after it landed a deal on the popular show "Shark Tank." That investment allowed it to launch an app, a gift-card service and partnerships to link to the registries at Target, Pottery Barn, Macy's, West Elm, Best Buy, Kohl's and Walmart.
Nearly 800,000 couples have used Honeyfund. It also has a sister site called Plumfund with crowdfunding for other events such as baby showers, anniversaries and retirement. Honeyfund recently relocated its headquarters from California to Clearwater, Fla.
Kavita Kumar • 612-673-4113
