Here’s a chart from a Businessweek article showing how the percentage of people buying a gift card for the holidays is still increasing, while the percentage of people making a holiday return is dropping.
Does this mean that gift cards are no longer considered tacky or lazy? If so, that’ll save me both some time and mental anguish as I hate shopping. I’m hoping to avoid any mall this entire season (so far so good). The negative correlation shown above would suggest that as a whole we aren’t very good at picking out specific gifts anyway! 😉
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Hm… here is a suggestion, if for some reason you don’t buy something just give somebody cash or a cash-type gift card – it will be better, despite of what a retailer will say.
Yes its OK to give gift cards in general.
This NRF survey claims that gift cards are the most wanted gift with 60% of people wanting them specifically : http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=News&op=viewlive&sp_id=1682
Elsewhere on NRF site they say that 80% of people plan to buy gift cards as gifts.
Everyones doing it…
Isn’t that chart just showing the fact that gift cards can’t be returned? They have to be used whether someone wants them or not. I still think gift cards are impersonal and kind of take away the enjoyment of gift giving. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t accept one and use it but I try to give a Gift Card as a last resort. Where does it end? We could just give cash back and forth and end up even but what’s the point?