TRINITY, Fla. — A local entrepreneur is trying to simplify the gift buying process for mom this Mother’s Day through his website, WhatToGetMom.com.
What You Need To Know
- A local man is adding businesses to his new website designed to get the perfect gift for moms
- The website, WhatToGetMom.com, spawned from an idea its owner, David Ishaq, thought up in 2012
- So far, Ishaq has about 10 vendors joining his site
He’s collaborating with local businesses throughout the Bay area to upload products on his site to create a centralized hub for people shopping for specific presents.
Tom MacKinnon, who owns MacKinnon Jewelers, has spent decades repairing and finding some of the most beautiful jewelry around.
“I can reorder anything if they see it and want it,” he said.
For the last 18 years, he’s been selling rings, necklaces and bracelets in his store in Trinity.
In his shop, people can buy different pieces or have their own collection repaired in house.
It’s a job he looks forward to every day because of what something like this does for the person buying it and for the person they’re giving it to.
“It’s all happy moments,” MacKinnon said. “That’s what makes it worthwhile.”
Making a profit and thriving in a difficult economic climate is also something that’s worthwhile to MacKinnon and so many businesses around the Bay area.
With that in mind, he was offered the chance to expand his business in a new way while partnering with David Ishaq, a man that’s developed a close relationship with MacKinnon over these last couple of months.
About 11 years ago, Ishaq came up with an idea because of a personal problem he had been dealing with every time May came around on the calendar.
“The impetus of the website was my mom,” Ishaq said. “I always had trouble finding the right gift for her.”
He’d try to spoil his mom, who raised him as a single mother, but never felt like he found the right thing.
“She’s just a wonder woman,” he said.
After spending years as a teacher, this past February, he decided to step away from teaching and start his own business based on that premise in 2012, creating a website called WhatToGetMom.com.
“We’re trying to make sure our reach targets all businesses for all people,” Ishaq said.
According to Ishaq, he does that through creating different categories of gifts on his website, like beauty and accessories to professional and business oriented.
“You have the hiking mom, the tech mom, beauty and cosmetics mom,” he said.
That way, people can shop the categories they think would most likely fit their mom’s personality.
To fill out those categories, Ishaq is going to local businesses, like MacKinnon Jewelers, to partner with them by putting their products on his website, creating sort of a middleman approach for people all over the world looking to spoil their mom.
“This is a friendly competition of sales and you’re collaborating with me on WhatToGetMom.com to make those sales,” Ishaq said.
The chance to increase sales has been appealing to MacKinnon ever since he met Ishaq.
“It gives us an opportunity to get our product out to a broader market,” MacKinnon said.
Ishaq’s whole business is family focused, whether it’s helping out long time mom and pop stores, like MacKinnon, to going next door and helping a newer entrepreneur with her boutique.
“He makes it so easy for boutique owners and business owners to integrate their website onto his site,” said Jessica Kolodziej, owner of Grace & Blossom Boutique.
Kolodziej started Grace & Blossom Boutique during the pandemic and was one of the first people to collaborate with Ishaq on the site.
She says it’s been a huge success, meaning she could keep this business going and spend more time with her young son, Lucas.
“It brought potential customers all over the globe to kind of find you in the midst of other boutiques,” Kolodziej said. “It’s something that is priceless.”
And that’s something Ishaq says makes his mom proud.
“If I could celebrate her every day, I would,” he said.
He says this website is one way he does just that.
David says he’s had about 10 vendors sign on to collaborate with him on his website.
Once things are finalized with other businesses, he plans on expanding to even more categories of gifts that he says are perfect when someone doesn’t know what to get mom.
