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Welcome Marketplace (Public Radio) Listeners
Hello out there in radioland…
If you’re one of the millions of people who heard the FiLife commentary on American Public Media’s Marketplace show tonight, thanks so much for coming to find us. If you didn’t hear it, you can listen in here.
The Marketplace piece was a riff off of a post we did a few weeks back ticking off seven reasons why it’s rude to give gift cards. We do list posts every Wednesday; last week’s was about a bunch of things we wish student-loan lenders would do better. We’ll have more to say about how universities handle student loans tomorrow, in fact.
For more about FiLife, read the About Us. Or check out the mini-manifesto we penned on the first day this blog went live. Our full site will launch soon. Until then, please set your internet dial here or sign up for an RSS feed.
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Great piece…it definitely gives me a whole new perspective on the stack of gift cards I have on my shelf….except my iTunes gift card.
Listening to your commentary by Ron Lieber on PRI makes me think that he needs to clean his desk and organize his life a bit more. Would you just leave money lying around? And this coming from the editor of a personal finance website.
While a gift card may not be right for his gift getting or gift receiving needs – the gift card is a valuable gift option for both retailers and shoppers alike.
The gift certificate or what we now refer to as a gift card has for the past 4 years increased in sales - $26 billion in 2006 and an estimated $34 billion in sales this year. This is obviously not because consumers think “It’s just rude” to give them. Quite the opposite is true – the gift card gives the recipient much more leeway to buy the item they like instead of returning the items they don’t. This is good for both the consumer (they get the exact gift they want – saves them the after holiday hassle of line waiting to make a return which will just lead to a store credit anyway – a fancy way of saying gift card) and for the retailer it avoids the cost of returns (processing an item – returning it to the vendor – refunding transactions so on and so forth).
While some consumers, Ron Lieber included, might leave value on the card – most if not all States have legislation on the books to dictate what happens to the odd dollar or cent. As for bulk in the wallet – the average American already has 5 to 10 credit cards – so the odd gift card is not likely to add bulk. And if the consumer leaves a card at home most stores have policies and the necessary software in place to look up the card for the customer.
Gift cards spur on retail spending and while they might not be the perfect gift for everyone on your gift giving list they are a wonderful option that has it place in the retail market of today. Anyway, who wants to get an old dirty $20 bill in a card for the holidays - for that matter who wants to carry cash?
Erik Paul
VP - Sales and Marketing
Gåva Systems
Erik, thanks for taking the time to comment. Touche on carrying cash. Fair enough. I tend to spend it quicker than gift cards though.
A few other thoughts:
1) If people want leeway, cash gives them more of it
2) Clean money is generally available at the bank
3) I would love to see a list of retailers that can look up a gift card that I don’t have with me and let me spend its value when the buyer may not be required to register it (when they purchase it) with their name or the recipient’s. That would be a neat trick. Am I missing something here?
4) Yes, the unclaimed property laws may (or may not, if the retailers cheat, which they do — this stuff doesn’t necessarily get enforced) keep retailers and card issuers from keeping unused monies. But I don’t care who ultimately gets it. I just care that I have to spend my own money to extract the full value of the gift. Still seems rude to me. Anybody else disagree?
Ron,
I would love to know the bank you deal with that gives you clean money - did you know that over 4 out of every 5 bills in circulation is contaminated with cocaine? Not my idea of clean money!
I can also tell you that all 559 retailers using our software in the USA and abroad can look up an account via the phone number.
You may have valid points as to your requirements for gift giving and getting, but still gift cards are a wonderful gift idea - $34 billion will attest to that.
Plus thanks to them retailers might see black this year instead of red!
Erik Paul
VP - Sales and Marketing
Gåva Systems
http://www.GavaSystems.com
But what if I like the cocaine?!
Can you spell out for our readers (and me) how this phone number thing works? Are there really 559 retailers that have every phone number for every giver/getter of every gift card? That’s a lot of phone numbers. Every one of those 559 retailers always asks for phone numbers when selling gift cards? What if the getter doesn’t have the phone number of the giver? What if the giver doesn’t have the phone number of the getter?
Thanks…
Ron,
For over the 10 years that we have been developing gift and loyalty software. Every version has included the phone lookup feature.
The feature work like this: When a customer activates a card the clerk enters a phone number. Should the giver not know the phone number the store can enter the phone number when the card comes back in for redemtion.
Of course not everyone leaves a phone number - the point here is simply that our system does give more options than most for looking up cards should they not be present.
Which bring me to another point - if you’re Bubbe, Mor Mor, Mom Mom or what have you gives you that cocaine laced $20 that you covet so - what happens when you loose that? No one is going to have the ability to get back your money with a lookup of a phone number.
Erik Paul
VP - Sales and Marketing
Gåva Systems
P.S. Thank you for the lively dialog!
Got it, thanks for the explainer.
What % of all gift cards set up with your software actually ends up getting phone numbers attached to them? Do clerks really prompt for this? The cynic in me says the answer to this question is in the low single digits.
And how many consumers know they can give their phone number at the register in lieu of the forgotten phone number? The cynic in me says the answer to this question is in the low single digits.
But I’m glad the technology exists — good stuff.
As for that $20, I wouldn’t lose it. And I wouldn’t forget about it. Gift cards get misplaced and forgotten, but cash rarely does (especially cash with that little somethin extra!)
Ladies and Gentlemen! In the white trunks, we have Ron “The Advocate” Lieber, weighing in at- former Fortune Magazine writer, Wall Street Journal Columnist, FiLife Editor, 3 time book author and consumer advocate. In the black trunks, we have Erik “Just Say No” Paul, VP of Marketing and Sales, scorner of the C note, davenport organizer, amigo of all things incentive. From the World Wide Web, for the millions watching around the globe- Let’s get ready to rumble!!!
Ron,
Our software has a feature that requires the clerk to enter the phone number before moving forward with the transaction. While, this feature can be shut off it is in the best interest of the store owner to enforce collection of this information. Reason being - marketing! Having a phone number and address is the key to a good gift card program.
In fact, our program takes that even further. We offer our end users a bevy of reports - 2 of which let the merchant know for marketing purposes when cards will expire and who has been inactive. It is in the best interest of the merchant to have you use your card. Thus all the nice bells and whistles in our software.
I hope one day you will come around to the joys of gift cards!
Erik Paul
VP - Sales and Marketing
Gåva Systems
http://www.GavaSystems.com
