Those are some great ideas. If you do have a buddy far away and don't want to ship a large item, I think gift certificates are great!! You could probably talk with some of the store owners here and they'll give you a code or something. I actually thought of that and put a gift certificate on my site. I'm only making harnesses so you can ship them, but yeah, I think it's a great idea!! They could also then choose what they wanted!!
Hope that's helpful!!