The Rise of the Gift Card

It seems like such a good idea and innocent enough. Who would assume that the lowly gift card would prove to be the bane of the economic analyst? The problem with the gift card is that it is popular and it isn’t used the same way that one uses other forms of money. It is like a little retail time bomb and one whose explosive potential is not known until it actually goes off.

Once upon a time the gift card was the province of distant aunts and uncles who had no clue how old the nephews and nieces were, much less their gender and what they wanted for Christmas. It was a gift of last resort but those days have changed forever and now the gift card is all the rage with even spouses giving them to one another. This is all well and good but[This content is for MEMBERS ONLY. Please click Subscribe in the upper right corner to continue.]

Posted by karen on Dec 7 2011. Filed under Executive Intelligence Brief. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry