I was checking the rack of gift cards at Target and one in particular caught my eye. It was the Westfield Gift Card. It is quite interesting the range of gift cards. Personally I think gift cards are a bad idea. Somehow those giving gift cards think they've gone out and made the effort to buy a present when really all they've done is taken perfectly good cash and locked it into something that can be annoying, inconvenient and may even cost their family and friends more than otherwise need be. To lazy to thing of a gift and now it is OK to convert perfectly good cash into a more restrictive present that indicates just how lazy you really are. Go figure.
However the Westfield Gift Card stood out as even a worse deal for the buyer. It costs and additional $5.95 for the buyer. Who would do that? Why would people pay nearly 12% more just to give people a piece of plastic instead of a $50 note.
People are certainly weird beings. Somewhere along the line we've decided to the tune of billions of dollars across the world to replace the far more flexible, no strings attached lovely gift of a fresh new note with a more restrictive and costly gift of a gift card. We somehow thing grabbing a gift card at the check out shows we've made more of an effort.
In the past I've lost a $50 gift card from JB Hi-Fi, because it sat around for quite a while. I simply don't buy things from JB Hi-Fi that often. Another gift card I won as a prize from a networking group was close to expiry (no wonder it was offered as a prize) and soon after expired. Never saw that coming. I've also read that up 20% of gift cards never get used, but my reading recently indicates that could be closer to 10-15%. Still that's a lot of cash in the pockets of retailers for doing nothing.
I have to admit I have purchased one gift card for another person. I knew this person loved buying their music on iTunes. I wanted to give her an iTunes gift card and to me that makes sense. So I gave the gift I wanted to give that was the actual gift. Not a generic gift card that could be used in a range of stores as a replacement for cash. Perhaps others have their reasons other than laziness.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au
However the Westfield Gift Card stood out as even a worse deal for the buyer. It costs and additional $5.95 for the buyer. Who would do that? Why would people pay nearly 12% more just to give people a piece of plastic instead of a $50 note.
People are certainly weird beings. Somewhere along the line we've decided to the tune of billions of dollars across the world to replace the far more flexible, no strings attached lovely gift of a fresh new note with a more restrictive and costly gift of a gift card. We somehow thing grabbing a gift card at the check out shows we've made more of an effort.
In the past I've lost a $50 gift card from JB Hi-Fi, because it sat around for quite a while. I simply don't buy things from JB Hi-Fi that often. Another gift card I won as a prize from a networking group was close to expiry (no wonder it was offered as a prize) and soon after expired. Never saw that coming. I've also read that up 20% of gift cards never get used, but my reading recently indicates that could be closer to 10-15%. Still that's a lot of cash in the pockets of retailers for doing nothing.
I have to admit I have purchased one gift card for another person. I knew this person loved buying their music on iTunes. I wanted to give her an iTunes gift card and to me that makes sense. So I gave the gift I wanted to give that was the actual gift. Not a generic gift card that could be used in a range of stores as a replacement for cash. Perhaps others have their reasons other than laziness.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au
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