Plenty of orders here are placed by somebody who is neither the giver nor the recipient. A daughter ordering the gift her mother wants to give. One friend collecting from six. An assistant handling a director’s Diwali list.
It works fine. What causes trouble is that four fields quietly decide who gets messaged, who approves the design and who can look the order up later — and they are usually filled in without anybody thinking about them.
Three versions of somebody else
| Who pays | Who it is from | Who we talk to | |
|---|---|---|---|
| You handle it for them | Them, or you | Them | You |
| You are gifting it | You | You | You |
| A group, one organiser | Everyone | Everyone | The organiser |
The middle column is the one that has to reach the recipient, and it is not on the order form by default. If the parcel should say it is from your mother rather than from you, that is a sentence you have to write when you order. Can you gift wrap it? →
The four fields
The email address. Confirmation, the tracking code and the dispatch note all go here. Use the address of whoever is actually going to act on those messages, which is normally the person placing the order rather than the person giving the gift.
The phone number. Two jobs at once: it is what a courier calls, and it is what unlocks tracking. If the parcel goes direct to the recipient, their number belongs on it.
The delivery address. Wherever the object physically goes, which may be none of the above — a parent’s house, an office, a wedding venue.
The name on the order. Ours, for identification. It is not what appears in the book.
Tracking, and who can actually use it
An order is looked up with the tracking code plus the last four digits of the phone number on it. Both halves, together.
That has a practical consequence for a proxy order: whoever needs to check on it must have both. If you are ordering for your father and he will want to follow it himself, either use his number or forward him the code and the four digits. How to track your order →
One person approves the proof
The most common way a proxy order loses days.
Nothing prints until the design is approved, and a proof sitting between three people who are each waiting for the other two is a proof nobody has approved. Two changes arriving from two people on the same afternoon is worse — they contradict each other and the round starts again.
Name one approver before the proof is sent. If the real decision belongs to somebody else, let them look at it and send one consolidated reply. The design proof →
If you are ordering for somebody not online
This is a large share of proxy orders: a grandparent who is not on WhatsApp, a parent who does not use email.
You do the whole process and they do none of it. That works, and it is worth being explicit about who is doing what so nobody waits for a message that was never going to reach them. Ordering without WhatsApp →
Frequently asked
Can I place an order that is a gift from a different person? Yes. Say so at the start so the note and any wording reflect them rather than you.
Whose details should go on the order? Contactable email and phone for the person handling it, unless the parcel goes direct to the recipient — then their phone number, so the courier reaches somebody who can open a door. Sending a gift without the price showing →
Can somebody else pay for it? Yes, payment and contact details do not have to be the same person. Prepaid either way.
What if I am collecting money from a group? Place one order and settle between yourselves. Splitting a made-to-order object across several payments is the slowest possible way to buy one. What we need before design starts →
Part of our guide to ordering a personalised gift. See also: ordering several gifts at once.
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