Asklemmy

43736 readers

2353 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

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
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

189

Why on gods green earth do people buy gift cards? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

119 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Utterly stupid little things, its money that is less useful in EVERY situation and expires! Even at the store where you can use it, what do you do with the money that's leftover but too little to spend? Especially at expensive places, you could very well end up with 10-20$ OF YOUR OWN MONEY, that you can't even use!

I was given a dunkin giftcard for volunteering at a repair cafe. First of all I'm on a diet but secondly I stuffed it in my wallet so quickly I completely forgot about it. The day I remember and go through the trouble of attending such a wretched establishment I was told it expired after I finished giving my order! After such bother to try to use this cursed thing I refuse to return fruitless from my endeavors so I paid with my own cash.

It is now, sulking into my hashbrowns and Boston cream do I realize I am now poorer, fatter and fucking miserable. FUCK gift cards.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Gift card money is invested same as sales, it rings up the same. This stuff gets sloshed together in the overall balance sheet. It amounts to probabilistic overpaying, where one person might spend their whole card immediately (no overpaying), another takes their time using it (overpaid at the rate of inflation), and another forgets about it, loses it, or just never spends all of it (overpayment by the amount left on the card).

You could also think of it as zero-interest debt issued by the purchaser to the store, payable in future purchase credits with the onus on the lender of the debt to collect later. As you note, the store can invest the money immediately so it is guaranteed profit.