There is no question that gift cards have been hugely successful, at least if you measure how big of a market they’ve become. But in my opinion, the success that has been lavished on gift cards has mostly been undeserved. By just about all measures, they are a terrible product; as gifts they are usually impersonal and thoughtless, often come with ridiculously high fees and short expiration dates, are easy to lose, and generally hard to get all of your value from. I suspect they have been a success because, well, most gift card issuers have been successful and tricking consumers into buying them by hiding the fees and, let’s face it, most occasions that would warrant a gift card in our culture have become fairly shallow events.

That being my personal view of gift cards, it is hard for me to comment positively about a website (www.giftcardgirlfriend.com) with the purpose of finding occasions for you to give the right kind of gift card, and helps you solve problems like not wanting the recipient know how much you spent on a gift card.

In fact, the very existence of a site like this somewhat validates my overall view of gift cards, doesn’t it?

Someone came up with the idea of a gift card that could be used to pay utility bills. Rather than give you some random gift card, people could sign you up for this gift card that was accepted by certain utility companies. Sounds like an interesting idea but it must be very regional as none of the companies you can pay I have ever heard of.

A recent Ebay auction sold a $100 Visa gift card for $161.50. That makes no sense to me.

What gift card has no fees, never expires, is always worth exactly what you paid for it, can be spent anywhere, and will never be subject to bankruptcy? Well, none. But I have an idea for a gift card that will satisfy all of that.

Basically, it would be a gift card with a hollowed out spot in the center where you can stuff some cash.

Here is a blog post showing some new dual purpose gift cards; one glows, one is a remote control car, one is a USB key, one is an MP3 player, and one is a digital camera. Is this really what will drive people to buy gift cards, or are stores just desperate?

Someone did a survey where they asked people if they preferred gift cards vs. other gifts, such as DVD’s. The very not surprising results were that people preferred gift cards. Perhaps a better survey would be to ask people if they preferred gift cards or cash. My prediction: 99% of people would take the cash.

I’m scratching my head about this one. Do people really want gift cards that double as toys? Will it get people to buy gift cards that otherwise might not?

Two women Pennsylvania agreed to walk around in public carrying sandwich boards that announced that they had stolen from a 9-year old after stealing the little girls gift cards, in exchange for no jail time. Perhaps if they made Postal employees do this when they were caught stealing gift cards …

Western Union just announced a new prepaid debit/gift card, but I think they missed the real feature that Western Union as an organization could offer. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t hear about a Postal Service employee getting caught stealing gift cards from the mail. The mail is clearly an insecure way to send gift cards and when you do send them via USPS, you take your chances. You can purchase the Western Union gift cards online and have them sent to the recipient Fedex Overnight, second day, or regular First Class mail. Western Union’s real strength is the number of locations – about 345,000 agent locations worldwide. If Western Union allowed you to send the gift card to the recipients nearest agent location, that would skirt the mail safety issue and would be a significant value-add for a gift card that is otherwise indistinguishable from the rest of the pack.

Update 4/13/10:  They apparently have a new promotion that offers free shipping through First Class Mail for their gift cards.

According to this Slate article, retailers sell low value gift cards ($5 or $10) because they know most people will spend more than that when the come in to use the gift card.

The recent Series A funcing round of $4.8 million that Plasic Jungle just scored from the likes of Shast Ventures, Bay Partners, and First Round Capital is the first such investment in a gift card site that I’ve seen. (article)