I’ve read that gift cards and gift certificates are expected to be the #1 gift this holiday season. I find this puzzling, as the logic behind this type of gift escapes me.
When you purchase a gift card for someone, you’re taking currency that can be used anywhere and at any time and converting it to another form of currency that is typically only valuable at one particular retailer, often for a limited time only.
Furthermore, some of these cards have a ‘purchase fee’, so the amount of goods you can purchase with them immediately declines. Many more have expiration dates, so they have to be used within a certain timeframe or you’re out of luck. Additionally, if you don’t spend the entire value of the gift card, you don’t get cash back as you would if you had paid cash.
So why do people give people gift cards instead of cash?
Do they want to control when and where you do your shopping? Are they worried that if they gave you cash you’d spend it on prostitutes and drugs??
If someone gave me a hundred dollars, I’d pay bills with it. If someone gave me a gift card, I could justify buying myself something nice with it. Of course, my bills would still be unpaid.
Since my cash is her cash and her cash is my cash, it wouldn’t make sense to give her cash. Not that the gift card makes much more sense, because it’s all just our cash anyway, but it makes a little sense in the “holiday mindset”.
It says, “I remember you told me you like that store and I did the work to go there to get you something because I know you like that place.” But it’s not as if I’d actually try to pick out a shirt or pants for her. IOW, “it’s the thought that counts”.
FWIW, it’s only a little stocking stuffer. It’s still a cold gift, not bad for a niece or nephew, but not a great wife gift if that’s all you’re going to get her.
Giving cash is considered gauche. There’s less stigma attatched to gift certificates.
Giving cash is also pretty impersonal. Giving a gift certificate at least says that the giver considered the reciever’s tastes, habits, hobbies, or what have you.
Gift certificates also give the receiver permission to indulge him/herself. In a way, this is a bit controlling, I agree, but at the same time, it gives the receiver permission to be frivolous and get something fun to treat themselves. If you give the person cash, they might end up just spending it on groceries or gas or the electric bill and not get anything out of the ordinary, which (unless they’re really desperate for money for groceries or gas or the electric bill) makes the gift less special.
I’ll probably get one for my teenage daughter to a clothing store she likes. If I got her cash, who knows what kind of crap she would buy with it. This way, I know she’ll get clothing and not a lot of junk food and stupid stuff. By the way, “Gift Cards” was one of the items on her Christmas wish list.
I also got one for my nephew to REI, but only because I couldn’t think of anything else to get the kid (a college student I see maybe once every 2 years).
I’d much rather get a gift card than some junk I’ll never use or some tacky piece of clothing I’ll never wear. A gift card from a place like Best Buy would make me happy, as I could get a DVD from there and feel like I was getting it for free, or else get a computer accessory for a discount.
I like gift cards mainly because of one of the reasons Knowed Out mentioned: they’re personal enough to show you do care enough to know the store, but still let them pick out their own stuff.
Plus, don’t forget, I can cheaply ship, say, an Amazon.com gift card overseas and still have it be useful! The Internet is great!
I figure that if you’re giving me a gift card to, say, Borders, what you are doing is buying me a book—under the caveat that you don’t know what book to get for me.
In some sense, cash is the most gift for the buck because it allows the receiver to make her own choices; although the degree to which the difference in welfare obtains will be a product of how large the gifts are relative to the receiver’s wealth or income. So in terms of restricting choice, time of availabiltiy, and so on, then cash is always the best gift.
The thing is that gift giving has more to it than just transferring welfare from one person to the next. While it would be nice to see Dung Beetle have some of his bills paid off, that is not necessarily what I’m looking for when I give him a gift. Gift giving is ostensibly about giving someone something special, and paying his bills so that he can go to Wendy’s for lunch instead of McDonald’s for a couple of weeks may not be the break from the hum-drum of daily life that I want my gift to be. On the other hand, if I give a gift certificate, I can restrict my giving to the range of choices that I think would be special, without getting the wrong thing.
I’ll have to ditto the responses given above. They’re good if it’s someone you don’t know all that well or are unsure what to get them. It’s more personalised than cash, since you’ve shown you ahve some sense of their tastes, but you won’t end up getting something they hate or won’t use either.
Personally, I also feel like you’re getting something for free or on discount when you use a gift card, while plain cash, even gift cash, still feels like it’s costing you money. It can also entice me to buy myself something I would enjoy but normally wouldn’t spend money on (I spend far too much money on anime and video games–a card from Chapters or Suzy Sheir would be much appreciated)
I like getting gift cards and gift certificates (provided the store sells something that I actually want, of course). Being a poor grad student, I usually can’t justify spending my own money on new books / music / clothes that aren’t from the thrift store, so it’s nice to be given a chunk of cash that HAS to be spent on something that’s a luxury rather than a “need.” And it means I get the fun of browsing around the store and deciding what to buy, which is usually reserved for the giver. (Granted, I can see how a gift card wouldn’t be the ideal present for people who genuinely dislike shopping, but I suspect they are in the minority.)
Well put. A gift card is not as tacky as cash, since at least you have to put some thought into what store the person likes.
Like Trunk said, gift cards and cash are really only good for nieces and nephews, especially teenagers, since they usually don’t want anything you’d give them anyway.
That’s so funny, my husband usually says the same thing. I had to check your location to see if you were, in fact, he.
That said, he changed his tune on gift cards after some really atrocious clothing my mother bought him—short-sleeved, sherbert-green, button-down shirt, anyone? Then he saw the value in having a means for people to pick out their own stuff while still picking up the tab.
Last Christmas, he gave me a new wallet, which I really needed. In the wallet were about a half-dozen gift cards to various stores, plus DunkinDollars, so I could buy some coffee in my travels.
It really stretched Christmas out for me, since I could keep buying stuff without really having to pay for it.
Now, mind you, my SO had a near fatal liver disease and has not had a drop of alcohol in 7 years. I drink beer and have not had a shot of liquor in probably 15 years. What in the hell are we supposed to do with this thing?
Oh how I wish my brother would have sent a gift certificate, like the one I am sending him which is good at an entire mall only a few miles from his house.
Hey! If you give them a Wal-Mart gift certificate they can use it to buy groceries or gas anyway! And the gas will be discounted.
I give gift certs to my coworkers as Secret Santa gifts. I only see these people a few days a week, certainly not enough to know what to buy any of them. Last year I picked my boss’ name off the Secret Santa Tree so I got her a Starbucks gift card. And on the way out I got a latté. Everyone’s a winner!
