the user experience of gift cards
My mother, bless her heart, doesn't believe in my (extensive) Amazon wish list. But since we live ~2500 miles apart, and she knows that we have wildly divergent tastes, she’s usually at a loss when she decides that she should give me a gift. Her latest solution to this problem is a generic Visa- or MasterCard-branded gift card.
The idea isn't a bad one. According to their marketing material, they're just like the gift cards that you'd buy at whatever store you prefer, except that you can use them anywhere instead of at a single store. In practice, though, they're pretty close to unusable, both for me and the poor cashier who is presented with one of these things. They're almost completely useless if you want to use one of them online, as I did when I wanted to purchase the Cowboy Junkies’ latest album from Amazon.
The issue appears to be of their implementation. When you buy a gift card from, say, Target, their system can check the value of your card and use it appropriately. But the generic gift cards appear to be treated as standard credit cards, albeit ones with exceptionally low credit limits. You're fine if your purchase is below the amount that is on the gift card. If your purchase is above the amount on your generic gift card, though, the system simply returns a standard "card denied" error message.
For me as the user of this gift card, the cognitive load for using this card is pretty significant. I have to know the balance that is on the gift card. I usually don't know when I receive it, so I have to call a telephone number or go to a website to retrieve it. If I have used the card before, I have to remember the remaining balance. Then I have to figure out whether my purchase of kitty litter and DVDs at Target is above or below the remaining balance. If my purchases cost more than the remaining balance, I have to tell the cashier what to do with my gift card, and hope that the cashier understands what I mean.
For the cashier at Target, they also have a usability problem. The gift card has nothing on it to identify it as a gift card, it just looks like a credit card. If they treat it as a credit card, it may or may not go through, and they don’t get any information about why it didn't. This is to protect the consumers' privacy in the case of a standard credit card going over their credit limit. The cashier can't determine the remaining balance on the gift card, so they can't help the gift card's owner out when the owner tries to use it. Cashiers often don't receive (or don't remember their) training as to how to accept two forms of payment for a single purchase, leaving them at a loss when presented with it. I've had several cashiers simply refuse to accept the card as payment when my purchase is more than the balance of the gift card.
Online, the problem is worse. Online merchants are happy to accept their own gift certificates, and that goes off without a hitch. I haven't noticed one yet that allows me to specify one form of payment for part of the purchase price and another form of payment for the rest of it, with the exception of using their own gift certificates. Their sites just aren't set up for it. For a geekgirl like me who conducts a significant portion of her business online, this is immensely annoying.
I had been trying to decide whether I should try to broach the subject with my mother. Do I accept the hassle of the gift card (which I know she thinks is completely hassle-free), or do I risk the unknown gifts that she'll send in its place? I still have nightmares about those lace curtains with the kitten pattern knitted into them, and the battery-operated wind chimes, and the tinned tuna. But then the problem got worse. I bought yet another hard drive a few months ago, and it had a rebate attached to it. I dutifully sent in the rebate materials. This time, instead of a rebate cheque, I received one of those generic gift cards. I guess I'm just going to have to deal with the fact that these things aren't going away, and that using them is going to be a headache that I don't want.
Comments
- Anonymous
April 04, 2007
I was going through a similar problem a while ago. I had two of these, each of $25, and I wanted to buy a $55 item at amazon. No way they would accept both cards as payment, plus my regular card to complete the amount. What I did was purchase two $25 Amazon gift certificates to myself, and apply them to my purchase. That way, amazon knows it can charge 25 to each certificate, and I was able to list my own CC to complete the payment. Since then, this is what I've been doing. When I get one of these, I decide what I want to buy, go to the store (online or brick), and buy a gift card to myself. Then I just use the gift card. I end up getting the best of both worlds: no risk of an unwanted gift, plus I am not tied to one speficic store when deciding what I want my gift to be :)