Gift Cards or Cash - Which is truly the gift of choice?

I think it was Dilbert who said “Gift Certificates are like cash, only less useful.”

It’s true! I honestly don’t “get” gift cards as a consumer, but I do understand their commercial appeal. Especially around this time of year. The National Retailers Federation says that $25 billion (5%) of all retail purchases will be gift cards this holiday. That’s a lot of money tied up in easily lost plastic. And it means that many more purchases will be made after the holidays, giving merchants a chance to adjust discounts to recover from poor merchandising decisions even more than the usual after-Christmas sales allow.

Merchants make TENS OF MILLIONS in profit from UNUSED gift card balances. Now THERE’S a racket! Right now I have four gift cards in my wallet. Each of them has about $2 in “change” on it. I’ll never use it. I’ve been in each of these stores several times - and forgotten each time. Ah… the system, it works perfectly!

As a consumer, I feel that if you can’t think of anything to give someone, and you want to do something nice for them - go to the bank and get some cold, crisp cash - or top up a debit card - or a paypal account.

Then… they really DO have a choice… Hey, and if they have a few bucks left over, they can buy a candy bar.

del.icio.us Digg it ma.gnolia Netscape reddit StumbleUpon Yahoo MyWeb

Leave a Reply