Gift cards are a six billion dollar industry in Canada -- so chances are you gave or got one this holiday season. But 15 per cent of them are never redeemed. That means almost one billion dollars worth of cards is wasted.
It's happened to many of us. You get a gift card to a store you don't like or a restaurant you don't care for and the gift card gets slipped into your wallet, or a drawer only to be forgotten about. The good news is that most gift cards no longer expire so they are as good as cash. Well now you have an option. There is a new website called to help you make the most of your unwanted gift cards so you can swap, sell -- and ultimately, save.
I spoke with Jenna Lam who says every holiday season she gets about 10 gift cards. This year she decided to sell one of them on the Cardswap website. Lam says "I had a Jacobs gift card and I didn't need it so I posted it online and I got a cheque in the mail."
Cardswap was created by Frances Ho after she studied similar websites in the U.S. She's confident of success saying many Canadians are looking for ways to make cash off unwanted gift cards.
Ho says "a lot of people forget about them or they return something and they get a gift card for them instead of cash and they just don't want to buy anything in the store."
The gift cards being sold on the site must have a discount of at least 10 per cent -- but many are 25 per cent or more. The bigger the discount or more popular the store the more likely it will sell quickly. The website makes money by charging the seller a 6 per cent fee with a minimum charge of $4.50.
Credit cards are not allowed to purchase gift cards because of security concerns so users buy the gift cards using cash directly from their bank accounts. The card is sent in the mail and the money is held by the website until the buyer is satisfied.
Ho calls the process completely safe. "We validate all the cards to make sure there is money on them so there is no concern about getting a worthless gift card."
Lam says she has a $100 Home Depot credit she plans to sell on the website -- to get something more to her liking. She laughs, saying "I don't need to build a deck or a shed. I'm hoping to sell it to buy some new shoes."
So now if you have a gift card you don't want -- you can sell it at a discount and get a cheque in the mail.
Key Points
- C is a Canadian website and it offers cards that have a discount of at least 10 per cent. The website makes money by charging the seller a 6 per cent fee
- There is at least one other similar Canadian website called
- There are several U.S. versions that also offer a similar service. They include , , and
- There is now also a new Gift Card Exchange App by CardHub on Facebook that allows you to swap with friends for free
- Gift cards continue to be the most requested present during the holiday season. According to a recent survey by the National Retail Federation (U.S.), 55.2 per cent of consumers said they wanted to receive a gift card
- However, a lot of gift cards don't get used. Gift cards are a 6 billion dollar industry in Canada, but 15 per cent of gift cards are never redeemed
- Canada's not alone. According to TowerGroup, a global financial services consulting firm, nearly $5 billion of the $87 billion that consumers are estimated to have spent on gift cards last year will go unused
