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Online Gift Card Exchange

Submitted by: nendo
Created: Nov 30, 2006, 10:12 pm

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The Idea

Say you get a $50 gift card to Target from your Aunt in Chicago who is totally clueless to the fact that we don't even have Target stores in Canada. To avoid hurting her feelings, you don't tell her. So what do you do with the gift card....they aren't exchangeable for cash and you can't really sell it (unless you got to ebay or find someone willing to buy it). So, naturally you Google "gift card exchange" and up pops a website to "giftexchange.com" or "exchangeyourgift.com" or something like that. You log on and presto....an open forum where you could exchange or trade your $50 useless gift card to Target for like a $45 gift card to Chapters. Who keeps the $5? Me of course (or perhaps the idea owner)! Think about someone who sends a prezzle to a friend for $50 or iTunes assuming that everyone has an iPod and they don't...they could perhaps re-route through prezzle to the gift exchange website and get some other gift.

I thought of this idea when I was...

getting annoyed with receiving gift cards that are useless to me.

Comments Posted

Ritchie Posted: December 2, 2006, 4:24 pm

How would you ensure that the person actually sends it? Who would send it first? You would have to set up a half way building where both halves are collected before being sent on to the purchaser. Which would cost money. Also you can't take a percentage of a gift voucher. You would have to heavily advertise to cover the costs and to make money.

yacht_boy Posted: December 3, 2006, 7:32 am

I would use this. I've had several useless gift cards over the last couple of years and trying to sell them on Craigslist or to friends isn't great. I don't think you'd have to set up a halfway building, Ritchie. This is very similar to ebay or half.com. Half.com guarantees satisfaction for the buyer and it's worked quite well.

Yes, you would need a big ad campaign to get started, but google keywords could do most of the heavy lifting.

I would also expect that if you could get aligned with a couple of big vendors, you could make it easier to trade. Just enter the gift card ID and get a gift card in a similar amount, with a similar expiration date, from another vendor. No mailing required.

Karus Posted: December 4, 2006, 3:54 am

http://www.google.co...ie=utf8&oe=utf8

um... I just did a google search for 'gift card exchange', and the first site that came up was cardavenue.com where you can buy, sell and trade. It's been done.

nendo Posted: December 18, 2006, 10:03 pm

thanks for the comments Karus...i should have done my homework huh?

saigon Posted: July 9, 2007, 1:52 am

i like this one.... but you can still explore some more services via this concept!

whoyouknow Posted: January 20, 2008, 1:15 pm

Pick a card, any card
Web sites serve as swap meets for gift cards
Sunday, February 19, 2006
The Columbus Dispatch
http://www.columbusd.../20060219-G1-01.html

Keeping tabs on gift cards
A website will offer services for shoppers and retailers.
By Andrea Chang, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
LA Times
December 1, 2007

Sell or Swap Gift Cards
Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.co...journal_secondary_hs
December 24, 2006

http://www.giftx.ca
- auction for gift cards

http://www.1cardwallet.com
- low end site facilitates card swap/sell via email

www.swap-bot.com
- facilitates group snail mail and internet swaps

http://www.swapagift.com
- trade or sell, $1.99 transaction fee
- trade for visa with a 70% to 80% of the card's balance

http://www.giftcardbuyback.com
- track, buy, trade cards
- buys cards, giving up to 80% of the card's balance
- only buy and sell gift cards in the US in USD

http://www.plasticjungle.com
- $18 for a $30 best buy card

http://www.leveragecard.com
- track, buy, trade cards, free!

http://www.thegiftcardtrader.com
- trade cards, $1.99 transaction fee

http://www.cardavenue.com
- auction / bid on gift cards

Hello!

Ideas