Do Gift Cards Make Good Birthday Presents?

Over the course of the past several months, we have been posting various blogs questioning whether or not gift cards make good gifts for anniversaries, weddings, graduations and other special occasions. And while the answers have all unsurprisingly been positive, we’re going to go ahead and call ourselves out on the question posed by today’s blog title. And that’s because the answer couldn’t be any more obvious!

Of course gift cards make good birthday presents! How could they not? For those of you (we know there’s still many of you out there) who consider gift cards to be “lazy” and “impersonal”, we implore you to strongly consider the following.

A gift card is what everyone wants.

Think about it. You run no risk of disappointing your birthday boy/girl when you hand him/her a gift card. Doing so allows you to eliminate the stress associated with trying to find the right size, the right colour and the right style. Of course, gift cards can give people the ability to purchase a lot more than clothes. And that’s just it! As long as you’ve selected a gift card from a store your gift recipient likes, you can’t go wrong.

“You could argue that a gift card is impersonal, that it\’s lazy, that it\’s a cop-out,” writes Kyle VanHemert on Gizmodo.com, “Ridiculous! A gift card is the most personal present there is. It\’s the gift of freedom to buy whatever you want, whenever you want it. It\’s the gift that says ‘we\’re good enough friends/relatives/acquaintances that we don\’t have to force it.’ And there\’s a certain beauty in that.”

Gift cards prevent unhappy gift recipients.

Be honest. How many times have you opened up a gift only to feign interest in it? “Oh…this is awesome…I…I love it” you barely manage to get out half-heartedly. We’ve all been there. Had you been given a gift card in place of that unwanted item, you would have been much happier, right? Admit it. Gift cards save both gift givers and gift recipients from very awkward situations.

“If you want to buy a present for a gamer for example, gift cards are a great option!” explains Matias Berra on Quora.com, “Chances are you will fail getting the right video game he/she wanted, a gift card (matching their console) would be a much better present as you allow them to choose exactly the game he/she desires.”

Gift cards are more thoughtful than you may think.

Let’s suppose you’re going to a birthday party and the person of honour has requested no gifts. Believe it or not, this request is most often made because so many gifts are so bad! Most people would love to avoid the whole process of having to figure out ways to pretend they like something they’ve just unwrapped. Gift cards save people the trouble.

According to Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, gift cards and cash can be positively given and appreciated. “You might give a gift card because you know the recipient will put it to good use and doesn\’t want a gift,” she is quoted as saying on MotiveMetrics.com.

Are you selling gift cards in your store? For information about the electronic gift cards available from Canadian POS, call us at 1-877-748-2884 or email us at info@localhost.