To keep abreast of new information related to gift cards one of the tools I use is Google Alerts which monitors news articles and blog postings for keywords. The last month or two, a majority of the articles I have come across have been negative towards gift cards in one way or another, either related to gift card sales going down, the “pitfalls” of gift cards – the fees, expiration dates, and bankruptcies.

Is it possible this represents a new trend in gift cards that is unrelated to the recessionary decline in general? It isn’t like there hasn’t been ample information about the negatives of gift cards, and yet consumers have shown little regard for this. Is the amount of information now being put in consumers faces enough to sour them on gift cards. This will be interesting to watch.