A startup called rackup has developed a new discount gift card site that uses a complicated short and quick auction scheme to sell gift cards at a discount (plus the chance to win an added value bonus). The average discount is 18%. They have apparently managed to attract $3.5 million in funding?

Consumers can already get a 15% or better discount on most gift cards at one of the MANY discount gift card sites out there. I’m not sure a complicated auction scheme like this would have a significant appeal to consumers.

I suspect this site will dump their auction scheme eventually and turn into an ordinary gift card resale site.

But then again, the very fact that consumers spend so much money on an obviously deficient product (gift cards) probably means that many of them will play this silly bidding game thinking they are getting a great deal, when in fact they are not.