Ah yes, the baby registry. I found this to be one of the most overwhelming things on the pregnancy “to-do” list. There are way too many products out there and everyone (and I mean everyone) has an opinion about the those products – someone’s “must-have” is another’s “waste of money.” When I was researching what babies actually need – spoiler alert, it’s not actually that much – I was also wondering where to register. I didn’t want to have three different registries at three different stores and I definitely didn’t want to be stuck at just one place. Luckily, one of my favourite influencers was pregnant and shared her registry using babylist.com. The features were amazing and when I realized you could use it in Canada, there was no turning back.
Babylist lets you add links from any site or store to allow more choices for anyone looking to buy your little one a gift. There is definitely more functionality on the US site, which I quickly learned when trying to set up mine. I wasn’t overly disappointed but it was slightly limiting. On the US site you can add either four or five links and buyers have the option to buy and ship directly from babylist. On the Canadian side, you are limited to only two links and there’s no shipping directly from babylist.ca – but the links take you directly to the product page so I didn’t feel that was an issue.
I never heard any complaints from friends or family using the site for our little guy, so I have to assume that everyone else found it as user-friendly as I did.
Review of babylist.ca
Pros:
- You’re not stuck registering at just one store. As I mentioned above, you can add two links on the Canadian site (I always did Amazon and then a brick and mortar store for anyone who isn’t an online shopper).
- You can mark items as “purchased” which is great if someone ends up buying an item from a store you didn’t have linked. If I remember correctly, most registries don’t have this feature and duplicate gifts are common.
- Building the registry itself was very easy. You have to set up a bookmark link (which sounds more complicated than it actually is) and then when you find an item you want to register for, you just click that bookmark link while on the product page and voila! The item is added to your registry. The only time consuming part was choosing the items you wanted and also deciding what stores/sites to link. It did take me hours, though, because I wanted to make sure I was linking the product at the lowest price so I was checking every place I could find.
- There is a corresponding app which was a great way for us to keep track of gifts purchased. The app also had weekly pregnancy updates.
- Anytime a gift was purchased you received an email notification. Because I’m so impatient I always went to the app to check who bought what.
- And because the app keeps track of who bought what, if you’re unsure who bought you the diaper genie when sending out your “thank you” cards, you can always double check.
- You can have your registry public or password protected for your shower guests.
- Searching for a registry on the actual site was super simple and you can send out a link to your registry as well.
Cons:
- As mentioned above, you can only add two links on the Canadian site so deciding what stores/sites to link can be hard (especially if certain stores are having sales).
- Seeing all the functionality on the US site and then the limited abilities on the Canadian site was a bit of a let down at first, but actually once I started to set up our registry it wasn’t all that noticeable.
- Because the links are not automatic, I was constantly checking the product sites in the weeks leading up to our shower to ensure inventory and that the price hadn’t changed (Amazon was brutal for that!)
- Not specifically a con, but something to note: in your settings, under Registry Preferences, make sure you uncheck “when possible, automatically show multiple stores that offer an item.” This doesn’t work in Canada and if your first link is an American store (i.e. Bed Bath & Beyond or Buybuy Baby, it will automatically use the US link and also add links from walmart.com and Target)
- There are items you can purchase directly from babylist like a pack of different pacifiers or bottles. These would’ve been something I would have for sure bought had it been available in Canada (I know from talking with other parents, babies can be picky about what pacifiers or bottles they like and having a box with five or six different brands is actually very practical). So really, on the Canadian site it is just limited to a registry only.
There are definitely some pros and cons using babylist.ca but overall I thought it was a great site and something I would 100% recommend to future parents. Hopefully the functionality up in Canada expands and more than 2 links can be added (or shipped directly from the site like in the US) but the fact you can mark a gift as purchased is very convenient to avoid duplicate gifts.
xoxo Kells
Oh Kells No 