Ban on Gift Cards

For the New Year I have decided to call for a ban, or at the very least a moratorium, on the use of gift cards as a viable option for gift giving for Christmas. However, I am not doing so for reasons which you might surmise.

When it first became an option for a birthday or Christmas gift, I was vehemently opposed to the idea of giving gift cards. It seemed so impersonal. It seemed so shallow. It seemed so thoughtless. I thought to myself, "Only a gift that is offered after thoughtful contemplation of the recipient’s tastes, likes, and/or needs is a considerate one.”

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the essential nature of gift cards, that is, putting the actual choice of the received gift in the hands of the recipient, was nothing new. Mankind, especially Grandparents in my case, had given gifts in the form of cash for years. I don’t remember one time when I thought to myself “My, how insensitive my Grandparents are!” Surely it is not merely a matter of generation difference that qualifies one as an appropriate giver of such a gift?

This year, however, the want of gift sensitivity increased even more with the dawn of the e-card (at least it was a new phenomenon to me). That’s right, now you can just email a document to someone which they print out and use like cash with the designated merchant. Why not? It’s cheaper than Western Unioning cash.

Consider the forerunner to the gift card—the department store registry. Predominantly in bridal form, the idea is that the bride herself (the groom only begrudgingly participates in this procedure) is able to choose a comprehensive selection of items she wishes her wedding participants to give her for her wedding present. Therefore, at least to some degree, the actual choice of the received gift is put in the hands of the recipient. This in fact is more advantageous than a gift card for once one takes just a few hours to select her desired items, her labor is complete in the matter. She has nothing else to do except wait to see what will be chosen from the selection pool.

Not only is it not due to the insensitive nature of gift cards, that I am calling for their ban at Christmas, it is also not because I am anti-market or anti-capitalist. It is not because that merchants benefit more than the consumer in that they actually earn interest on the cash they receive before the merchandise has even been removed from their inventory—in other words, before they have paid for it. It is not because some merchants charge an administrative fee if the card lays dormant for more than a specified amount of time. Finally, it is not even because some estimates suggest that nearly 20% of all gift cards go unredeemed. That means that the value of a gift card sold is actually 120% of the price for which it is sold.

No, the reason is that essentially for many it is merely an exchange of equivalent quantities of credit. In the case of a friend of mine, his family had to assign specific merchants as the issuer of the gift card to each family member so that Christmas didn’t become merely the exchange of $25 Starbuck’s gift cards from each to the other. The only true beneficiary to such a transaction is Starbuck’s. For in a family of 6, Starbuck’s bottom line increases by $150. However, for each individual family member the net value of their giving/receiving transaction is $0. Now you tell me, who really has the Merrier Christmas?

I know, I know, essentially the net value of gift/receipt transactions for each individual at Christmas is generally $0 even when actual gifts are used. However, nearly all of the mystery of gift-giving disappears the moment the little, flat, rectangular present is wrapped. Imagine ten, twenty, or thirty of these little presents stacked around the Christmas tree. The only remaining mystery is whether it is a MARTA bus pass or some sort of merchant gift card.

Finally, Santa Clause will become an irrelevant, extraneous, has-been little elf. Can you imagine jolly old St. Nicholas picking up little Johnny or Suzie into his lap, smiling and ho, ho, hoing in his deep, guttural laugh, and then asking the question, “So, little boy, from which merchant and in what denomination do you want your gift card issued this year?”

I’ll not have it.