116
Why on gods green earth do people buy gift cards?
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
116 points (85.8% liked)
Asklemmy
43632 readers
1324 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
They could be purchased en mass at a discount. The corporate gift card as a gift, might only cost 70%, and have a rebate if it's never used. Depending on your jurisdiction it may not count as income either, reducing HR burden. So it makes financial sense.
They're often sold at a discount to retail customers, to lock them in, a bet that they won't actually use it versus utility somebody gets from a discount. Just like mailing coupon/rebates
It is one of the more practical off-ramps for crypto, you can buy gift cards with crypto, then use those gift cards for real world needs.
In the domain of gifts, if somebody has a spending problem, or a dependency problem, and you want to make sure they buy something in a certain vertical, locked in money as a gift card to make sense. If you give a drunk $50, they're going to buy alcohol. If you give them a $50 gift card to bed bath & beyond, they might actually use it to improve their house
It can also be a form of virtue signaling, a $50 gift card to the air and space museum, or the science museum... Is both a gift of money, but an excuse to go to a new place and do a new thing.
I'm surprised this comment is at the bottom... It's the correct answer. Companies can offer or donate gift cards to employees (like during a team event). But if they offer cash, that works like a bonus and it's legally trickier.
I posted early, so i get sorted to the bottom by new. I had too much text so many people won't read it. If I wanted lots of karma I'd have a one or two sentence pithy zinger.
I tried to be accurate and complete, yet I still got downvoted! haha, that's lemmy for you.