Thanks for the useful comments.

The main difference between Gifty and traditional gift registries is that with gift registries you're tied to a particular store, say "Bed, Bath & Beyond". With Gifty you can add gifts to your list from whatever store. I'm biased, but I think this is a fairly big advantage.

Actually, I'm probably more keen to capture the NZ market at this stage, but you're probably right about .com's for universal appeal.