#Gift card rescue percentage full#

Some states, like California, have a law requiring retailers to allow customers to cash out the balance on their gift card if the balance is under $10, though retailers don't, for obvious reasons, publicize this option and often don't inform their sales associates, which can make the process clunky.ДЇor those customers who need more than $10 but aren't quite ready to hit the mall, hat - and gift card - in hand, there's a whole cottage industry of gift-card resale sites that allow customers to trade them in online. 'That will certainly have an impact on retailers.' Gift cards don't get counted as sales until they're redeemed, so when shoppers cash in their gift cards for cash, 'it's essentially a lost sale,' Whalin said. 'Practical is the new black,' said Scott Krugman, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation.Д®ven though the collapse in consumer spending didn't hit until the fall, the trend toward pragmatism had begun to peek through as early as January, Krugman said, when Wal-Mart revealed in its January-sales report that shoppers were using their gift cards for food and not electronics or toys.ДЄt least then, they were spending on something. 'Since gift cards came about, we haven't seen anything like this.'ДЄnd that has shoppers behaving differently as well. 'We're in new territory here,' Whalin said. Tom Chin, managing director at the Telsey Group, estimates that the percent decline could be in the high single digits or low double digits. Gift-card sales are expected to be down about 6 percent this year, according to a November projection from the National Retail Federation, though it could be much worse. They also had doubts about the future of retailers from which they might, under different circumstances, have bought a gift card. But that trend hit a brick wall this year as consumers cut back and worried about their future. Gift-card sales have been rising since they began circulating about 15 years ago. Said Whalin:'The cash situation is real, given the economic problems we've got these days.' After we completed the transaction at the register, she thanked me profusely, then asked, 'Do you know anyone who's hiring?'

#Gift card rescue percentage full#

When I told her my item wasn't that expensive, she found someone else to split the card with me so she could get back the full $25. She said she had recently lost her job and needed the money. A woman approached me in a department store, asking if I could use a $25 store gift card to buy the sweater I was holding in return for cash. I experienced this firsthand while scouring the stores for bargains a few days after Christmas. But others are approaching shoppers directly, gift cards in hand. Most consumers use these sites to get cash-though usually at less than the gift card's face value-or to swap for other gift cards that can be used to buy food and other necessities. And Plastic Jungle, a gift-card-resale site, estimates that traffic on its site is up about 30 percent from last year. There are more than 6,000 gift cards for sale on eBay right now, up from about 4,000 around this time last year.