Interesting statistic about gift cards

*emeleel* · #1 12-19-2003, 11:51 AM

This caught my eye in Time magazine this week. According to the auditing firm Deloitte & Touche, 10% of gift card values are never redeemed. This holiday season alone, that means 4 BILLION extra dollars in the pockets of retailers! Wow.

No wonder retailers have started pushing gift cards as "the way to go".

The blip I read this in (not a big article) mentioned selling GC's on Ebay, or trying a couple of new GC-specific buying/selling websites: http://www.certificateswap.com or http://www.swapagift.com

I also read in another article somewhere that another reason that retailers love GC's so much is that not only do they extend the buying season, but that people with GC's (not me, but a lot of people!) are more like to buy full-priced merchandise instead of bargains.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #2 12-19-2003, 11:58 AM

Or folks will get a $10 gift certificate and pony up the extra money for the $15 item.

Around here, some places are selling cards that start losing money as time goes on. A friend bought one of those Visa gift cards at a local mall. It cost her $1.50 for the card plus the $50 she put on it. After six months, if her grandson doesn't start using the card, it loses some percent of its value every month until it's just dead. But since it's going to a teenager, that probably won't happen

poseidon · #3 12-19-2003, 12:20 PM

Hehe. We love gift cards. We found one a few months ago from our wedding that we misplaced -- it was a $50 GC to Target. We went ahead and spent it a few weeks ago on a digital camera that was marked way, way down. The camera didn't wind up costing us all that much.

Almost all the GCs that we got for the wedding were used to purchase items on sale.

Of course, we love Olive Garden and Outback GCs, and never turn those down.

Yesterday I won a $5 gift card in a drawing to my local supermarket (Kroger). $5 is $5, and we shop there exclusively anyhow.

*emeleel* · #4 12-19-2003, 02:37 PM

Oh yeah, almost all the gift cards these days come with inactivity fees, even if you didn't have to pay an upfront fee. Usually it's a minimum of 6 months, then about $1.50 each month, sometimes more, that you don't use it.

frazzledspice · #5 12-19-2003, 04:24 PM

Our mall has the Scroogiest gift certificates around.

They switched to a gift card program.

Recipients can check their balances online. Problem is, when they go to a store in the mall, unless they know their balance, the store has no way of checking it, and won't accept the card.

They can call up the gift card office (M-F 9 to 5...)

Otherwise they tell you to pay by some other means.

Even worse, if the gift card isn't completely used within six months, they deduct a $2.50 per month fee!

Before I found out how awful these gift cards were, I bought one as a birthday gift for a friend of my daughter's (a decision I immediately regretted.)

Me, I buy my gift cards through the Hotwire Savings Club. www.hotwiresavingsclub.com

They have gift certificates for all sorts of stores, restaurants, movie theaters, etc. and you get a 20% rebate on all the gift certificates you've bought about two weeks after you've made the purchase.

In stores I shop at regularly, like JC Penney, I always have a few gift cards handy so I can buy my own things at a 20% discount.

I will also use these gift cards as birthday and Christmas gifts.

Why anyone would want a gift card that charges you a $2.50 a month maintenance fee when you can get one somewhere else at a 20% discount is beyond me.

**theworm**[$] · #6 12-19-2003, 04:29 PM

That sounds like a good deal, Fraz. I looked at it, and I don't know that it would be worth it. The "membership fee" comes out to almost $100/year. Do you really use it that much to make it worth while? They do have a 30 day free trial. I guess people can see if they use those merchants. I like the idea of half price movie tickets.

frazzledspice · #7 01-01-2004, 05:57 PM

It's been worth it for us.

My mother-in-law loves Borders, so we've given her GC's for Christmas and her birthday.

My daughter and I get our hair done at JC Penney (remember, we live in a smaller city) and probably spend a few hundred dollars a year on that.

We went to the Olive Garden Christmas Eve (party of 5.) Our bill was $115 with the tip.

Bought a few video games for children at Toys R Us...

Bought a number of Christmas gifts at JC Penney (which always has great sales.)

Also used Outback GC's when my husband and I went out to dinner while my daughter was at her first semi-formal dance.

I realize that our options are more limited because of where we live. Our local mall just has JCPenney, Sears, and Dillards. While there are a few very nice restaurants in this city, the chains are very popular--Outback, TGIFridays, Red Lobster, Olive Garden--all of which are in this program.

I figured that in order to come out ahead we would have to spend $480 a year (or $40 a month) but we've been members for 2 months and have already spent more than that with Christmas gifts, etc. during this season.

For us it's really been worth it.

**thinkerlady**[$] · #8 01-09-2004, 08:45 PM

I got caught in one of those inactivity fees. I received a gc from a student to a store where I didn't normally shop. When I finally got there, there was nothing left on the card. And the manager wouldn't recognize it.

About the teens--they love the cards because they can shop and not have to deal with money--I like the idea. Especially now that the kids are getting older, and have such defined tastes in clothing etc. I gave a few gc's to our older neices and nephews this year.