Local gift giving tech platform launching in time for Mother's Day 2019

A new gift-giving platform is set to test launch in the region this month ahead of Mother’s Day 2019.

The platform has been created by a regional behavioural psychologist and a software developer.

Love Presto, the brainchild of Dr Amanda McNamee and her husband Jonathan, believes the technology will simplify the process of buying gifts for millennials and is encouraging the people of the region to test the platform before expanding its offering throughout the UK.

Dr McNamee, a 35-year-old Irish psychologist living in Darlington, said: “Millennials already know and understand the benefits of using transparent and consented-to data-driven tools to simplify difficult and stressful tasks such as gifting.

“We’ve developed a Mother’s Day offering which helps users to discover the right gift for the occasion. Mother’s Day was an obvious choice as after Christmas it’s the biggest gifting occasion in the UK.

“Research shows we are happiest when we receive a gift we have asked for, however, we rarely ask for the gifts we want. ‘You know what I like’ and ‘I’ll be happy with anything’ usually result in us not being happy at all.

“This cycle merely perpetuates the myth of gifting i.e. That the perfect gift is a surprise. The perfect gift is not a surprise. It needs a helping hand. We believe Love Presto can be that helping hand!”

lovepresto.com.

Love Presto’s research-based algorithm will make gift suggestions based on multiple reference points including relationship, occasion, common interests and budget.

The service will be available to use from today (March 15) and Mother Day’s (March 31).

Dr McNamee has spent over a decade working in Behavioural Psychology, both as an academic at Teesside University and consultant in her own business.

Meanwhile, her husband, software design expert Jonathan, has spent over 15 years in development and management across multiple sectors including finance, web and mobile and believes the North East is the ideal place to collate the data they need to expand.

He continued: “The people in the North East are some of the warmest and most loyal that you could meet and they’re an ideal market for us. We often get asked if we’ll ever move back to Ireland permanently, but we honestly can’t imagine living anywhere else.

“Setting Love Presto up in the North East was an easy choice. The North East is a hive for digital startups and creative tech companies - one of the fastest growing regions in the UK.

“There’s a sense that success is a collective effort and coupled with the entrepreneurial outlook in the region, there are a lot of us eager to support each other’s businesses in order to put the North East on the map.”