You make good points: we need to improve our design, add search, and let users communicate easily. Actually, we are working on all of these.

However, we don’t aim to be a social network, or to have the biggest catalog. Any site can find an iPod. Our main goal is to give simple, useful answers to complicated questions. Unlike most sites, we can respond to requests like this:

I want to give my mom a present. She is 55. She likes crafts and art. I want to give an “experience”-type of give instead of “goods”. I don’t want to spend more than $50.

To this user, we recommended an online art class.

Even if you didn’t like our suggestions, I’m surprised that you found our site condescending. We haven’t heard that reaction before. I’d love to understand what we did to make you feel this way, so we don’t alienate anyone else.

Again, thanks for the feedback, and I hope you’ll like our service better next time around. We’re working very actively to improve it.

Best,

Mikhail Seregine
Founder, ClayValet

PS Small correction: we guarantee to respond to each request within 24 hours, and we often respond faster. It does not “often take days”.