Custom Christmas Chocolate from Chocri

We all like Christmas. It’s a day that is universally known and even if we all don’t do the same thing, we almost all have the tradition of giving presents.

It’s a time honoured tradition that every year puts people in a small predicament – what to buy everyone. Like most people I’ve got friends and family I buy for each year, but I’m no good at finding something that’s unique to each of them and that I know they’ll enjoy – but now I do.

Chocri is a website that allows you to chose any five toppings (from a catalogue of over 100) for a 100g chocolate bar and have it delivered to your door. This process has an odd charm and having just sat with my technology-fearing mother for 20 minutes ordering her a bar, she then asked if I thought her mum would like one.

The site itself has been featured in a lot of national press in America and more recently in the UK, but if you ask someone over here if they’ve heard of Chocri most won’t. I think this is a shame.

The site was founded in September 2008 in Germany and has since expanded to the US in January 2010 and more recently into the UK. It might be early days since the company launched in England but with Christmas round the corner it couldn’t have been timed better.

Because the site only sells chocolate bars it will have obvious spikes of interest around Christmas, Halloween and Valentines Day, but what about peoples birthdays and weddings? The key to this is marketing the product to a specific audience in the UK and I think social media would be a great avenue to do this.

Chocri does have international accounts for all customers not living in Germany. But I think it needs to create a dedicated UK Facebook / Twitter as in the long run this will make marketing and running location-based competitions easier.

The sites main selling point is each bar is unique and unless you specifically order the same bar each time you’re hardly likely to get the same bar twice.

I received my bar less than 24 hours ago, and I’ll be honest it is all gone. I wanted to take a photo and use it on this blog, but my housemates got to it while I was out so I only have the wrapper to show for my purchase.

The bars aren’t the cheapest on the market but they are custom-made and have used high quality ingredients. To be honest, I’m looking into buying another because it leaves you wanting more.

As we approach Christmas a great present idea would be the gift cards that allow your friends to go online and build their own bar.

I do love the Christmas packaging for the holiday season, it looks great without distracting you from what you’re really interested in: the chocolate.

If all that wasn’t enough to convince you this is a great Christmas gift, 1 per cent of each Chocolate bar sold goes directly to help the children of the Ivory Coast using the charity div-kinder.de. At the checkout you can also chose to add a little bit extra on if you’re feeling really charitable.

My favourite feature of the site is being able to browse the recommended creations section. It’s quick way to see how creative other customers have been and really helps inspire you to make one of your own.

If you’re short on ideas and want something creative and fun this product is perfect for your parents, significant other or friends – and because you have to order two at a time, you can get yourself one while you’re there.