CNN.com- December 12,2010
This year, shoppers are going traditional. Instead of buying gift cards, they opt to buy an actual gift.
It costs them less. So instead of spending $100 on one single gift card, shoppers now can buy more than that with the same amount of money.
Retailers, after a dismal sale last year, also distribute bigger discount this year. They experienced a cheerful Black Friday this year generally, because sale shot up much better than last year. Still, consumers want to be more discrete in spending their money in the current economy, which only receives a few glances of recovery.
Yet, gift card sale slow-down does not worry much retailers.
""Only 10 to 15% of retail sales in January come out of gift card redemptions", according to the article. But it is a change for the better.
It is interesting that Gift card sales have slowed down so much. It seems now gift cards are more available and offered with higher incentives to buy. Giant Eagle grocery store offers fuel perks when purchasing gift cards and makes many other companies gift cards available at a single location.
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense that only 10-15% of retail sales came from gift card redemptions, i know it is very common for people to buy them as gifts and for the recipient to forget they have it and forget to use it.
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