Just for the fun of it, below you will find interesting and/or little-known facts about gift cards. If you have a fact I've left out, by all means leave a comment and I'll add it! Have a wonderful Hump Day!
1. Gift cards are the most requested gifts of all--70% of Americans say that they would prefer a gift card as a present. Gift cards are the second most given gift.
2. Men spend more money on gift cards than women.
3. On the average, everyone in the United States has 5 unused gift cards, a total of 8 billion dollars in unused gift cards. You can sell those to Mercardi.com for up to 90% of their value.
4. The average value of a gift card is $35.
5. The gift card evolved from the paper gift-certificate, which was brought to the mass market by big department stores in the mid-1930s.
6. McDonald's began its successful Christmas gift-certificate program in 1970.
7. Gift certificates were first replaced by electronic gift certificates, or gift cards, in the mid-1990s.
8. Jennifer Pate, an economist at Loyola Marymount University, credits the Mobil Oil Company with producing “the first retail gift card that recorded value on a magnetic strip” in 1995. The card, which could be used toward gas fill-ups, was built using technology borrowed from prepaid phone cards.
9. Blockbuster is credited with pioneering the modern-day gift card, and was the first to display gift cards for sale in 1995.
10. K-Mart was the first discount retailer to join the gift card bonanza. In partnership with AT & T, the card could be used as both a gift card in the store or a calling card.
