4 Underrated Reasons To Buy Gift Cards This Holiday Season
Written by
Tiffany Lew
Edited by
Angela Corry
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During the holidays, some shoppers may shun gift cards for their older sibling, a wrapped gift. However, gift cards are not just a last-minute checkout-aisle grab for an acquaintance. They have an essential place on one’s holiday shopping list.
Below, we explore four underrated reasons to buy a gift card this holiday season.
Gift Cards Support People You Know Well
Gift cards aren’t just for distant colleagues or relatives that someone doesn’t know very well. In fact, it’s the opposite. They’re a perfect purchase for those with niche interests that may not overlap with the shopper — anything from fountain pen collecting to medieval history to taxidermy. Rather than risk purchasing an item that the receiver already has or is too basic, givers can feel relief knowing their recipient can truly shop to their own heart’s content.
When it comes to unique interests and hobbies, only they know what they want, need, or already have the best. And the gifter knows them well enough to know that. Furthermore, gift cards encourage those with niche interests to actually use the gift for themselves not just for something random.
Gift Cards Offer Special Incentives and Discounts
Major retailers such as Costco and Target offer incentives on gift cards that can save the purchaser major money or provide other bonuses. For example, Target Circle sometimes offers 10% off on gift card purchases during the holiday season. Costco throughout the year offers deals on gift cards, including offers in line with spending $80 on a $100 gift card, for example.
And it’s not just gift cards to mundane shops or restaurants. Gift card options nowadays include smaller, local boutiques, foodie hot spots, airline tickets or weekend entertainment destinations like Top Golf and AMC.
Gift Cards Avoid Overspending
Holiday shoppers may walk into a department store or log on to a retail website with a set budget in mind and the intention to stay within it. In reality, that cost can easily overflow when one is faced with the overload of endless gift options intertwined with bright advertisements and engaging marketing copy.
So a shopper is left either rationalizing why one’s best friend is “worth” an extra $6 or justifying random items to meet that free shipping minimum. These temptations are nipped thanks to gift cards and their predetermined limit.
Gift Cards are Stress-Free
Organizing holiday gifts — whether they include tissue paper, wrapping paper, gift bags, gift tags, or another shiny item — can too easily add up in time, money and energy. Physical items can also too easily get lost or damaged in the in-person, in-flight or cross-universe shuffle.
Gift cards, whether sent virtually or placed neatly in a holiday card, take up no real space. Fewer worries, too, about getting damaged in the mail a la a big brown box at one’s front door.
A simple gesture can even bring faraway people a little closer. A friend who lives across the country may not be able to drop off a home-cooked meal or plate of cookies, but they can write a heartfelt note and send a DoorDash gift card that will provide a handful of quick and easy meals.
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