Gifts for the hard-to-buy-for grad

— -- Let's face it: sometimes it's difficult to find the perfect gift. And with grads whose tastes may be evolving as they transition to the next phase in life, it can be particularly challenging.

Fortunately, there are services that enable you to give your grad the option to choose his or her own gift and lend a personal touch to the process.

Wantful

On Wantful you can create a custom online gift catalog that will be sent to your grad. He or she can then pick any one of the 16 items in the catalog. Start by choosing one of the site's curated collections or tell the site a little bit about your grad and you will be presented with more than 20 items to fill up your catalog. If you don't like the initial set, the site will suggest more until you fill it up. All of the items in a particular catalog are the same price. Catalog items start at $30 and go up to $500.

You can further customize the catalog by choosing a cover image, adding the "for" and "from" names and composing a personal message. For an extra $5, you can choose to have a printed catalog and sent to the grad.

Karma

For the more casual gift giver, the Karma app (free on iTunes and Google Play) lets you send a gift via text, email or Facebook (which has just acquired Karma). You start by picking a profile — foodie, geek, host, quirky, romantic, eco-friendly, trendsetter, baby — and a price ($0 to $100) and the Karma app will make some suggestions. Once you've found the perfect gift, you select a card, add a personal message and it goes out via your preferred route — text, email or Facebook. You can choose to have the message sent immediately or on a future date. The recipient then chooses to accept the gift and inputs a shipping address or email, for free items like IOU coupons. If your grad chooses not to accept it, you won't be charged.

Treat

When picking out a gift is too difficult, there's always a gift card. In the case of Treat, you don't even have to pick out the gift card. Your grad can choose from a retail gift card, to donate the amount to charity or to get cash on Treat.com. The code to make that selection comes printed in a greeting card that you can customize with your own message and photos. There are hundreds of cards to choose from, including high school and college graduation cards. Cards cost $2.99, plus the gift card value.

Suzanne Kantra is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Techlicious. Email her at techcomments@usatoday.com.

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