Freedom to Buy and Sell Gift Cards and a History of the 4th of July

On this distinctly American holiday, those of us at Mercardi.com, where you can buy and sell unwanted gift cards at deep discounts, we thought it appropriate to post a link to this great article at the Daily Beast. The article notes how even though our country can be extremely divided on issues, for this one day, the 4th of July, we put our issues aside and celebrate America's freedom.

Enjoy, and be sure to pass this article along. It offers an in-depth history of the 4th of July, complete with reactions from citizens to their impending freedom in 1776. A wonderful, educational and enjoyable read.

Happy 4th of July Americans!

Great Gift Card Deals for Wednesday, June 9, 2010

After scanning Google (thank you for following Bing's example and offering up to date search results!) for the latest in gift card deals, here are what we consider the best for today, June 9, 2010. Some of these are time sensitive, so be sure and get there to take advantage of each gift card deal asap. Enjoy!

I really like this site, Totally Target. It list the latest gift card deals exclusively from Target, some great stuff there!

This site, Gift Card Discount, makes it their business to list the latest gift card deals online. Very good info and savings regularly.

Engineer a Debt Free Life has some awesome gift card giveaways in the month of June. For example, they have a $100 Target gift card and a $50 Walmart gift card up for grabs right now! Check out the giveaway list here.

Deal Seeking Mom has a great Win it Wednesday going on every week, and today is WEDNESDAY! The gift card up for grabs right now is a $100 Borders gift card, which I am definitely after! Here is the link, be sure to pass it along!

Dealighted has great deals on gift cards all the time. Today there is a $15 gift card from Auto Zone for every $100 spent online.

Yahoo Deals posted this deal today for a Norelco razor from Walmart for $35 with a $5 free egift card.

5 Great Ideas for Sprucing up Your Gift Cards

Although there is no argument--$90 billion was spent on gift cards last year--that giving gift cards for special occasions is THE preferable thing to do, there are those of us who miss the old-fashioned tradition of wrapping gifts, or at least presenting our gifts in a way that says I took the extra time to show I truly care.

If you see yourself in the above statement, then you will really enjoy the following list. I have rounded up, from across the internet, what I feel are the coolest, most beautiful and/or unique ideas for dressing up a gift card. (If you have an idea that isn't mentioned here, by all means leave a comment and I will add it!)

I really love some of these simple but elegant gift card holders and wrap from The Essential Packaging Store Blog




This article from E-how offers some very cool and unique ideas for disguising your gift cards. One really great example is to buy a cheap paperback for your book lover friend or family member and place the gift card somewhere between the pages.

Here is a great post from Giver's Log, 5 Ways to Wrap a Gift Card. A few of the items used are a milk carton and a pillow box.


Of course Martha Stewart would have the best idea for putting your gift cards on your Christmas tree. What would wrapping ideas be without something from Martha?




Last but certainly not least is the old 'box inside a box inside a box' idea. All you need are empty boxes that will fit inside each other and the gift card be inside the last one. Wrap the last one with ribbons and bows, but make sure and put some paper or other material inside to make the box have a sound when shaken and not be so light. Of course, you can always just buy gift bags and place the gift cards inside.

The Gift Card Business Has Scammers Too

It's a sad but true fact that every silver lining has a gray cloud, and for every good thing you find online there is almost always a dark side. It's also very true that whatever looks too good to be true usually is.

In that vein, I hope this post will save you time, trouble and heartache by bringing to your attention different online scams that have infested the gift card industry. I did some research after reading an article about the current gift card scam affecting Whole Food Market on Facebook, and lo and behold, I came up with almost 5 million hits on Google for the search term, "gift card scams."

Now that doesn't mean you should not participate in buying and selling gift cards, no how, no way! By and large, the gift card industry, which includes Mercardi.com, is super straight, reliable, dependable, and honorable. I just wanted to give you a head's up. It's like anything else online, or offline for that matter, before you dive in do your homework!

For all You Deal and Free Stuff Lovers

It's probably not a stretch of the imagination to think that if you love buying and/or selling unused gift cards with Mercardi, you also have a special place in your heart for great deals and free stuff, (us bargain lovers can usually recognize each other easily!)

So today I thought I'd turn you on to a couple of our favorite sites to find great deals and get free stuff. There are people at SlickDeals.Net who spend a majority of their time online posting and reading other posts about great deals. It is one of my all-time favorite deal sites.

JustFreeStuff.Com is by far my favorite place to find totally free stuff, such as free samples, free merchandise; really, they have so much free stuff listed it would be hard to describe it all in this post. Just sign up for their newsletter and you will get a weekly update with the links to the best free stuff online.

Here at Mercardi, being that we are in the business of saving money and bringing great gift card offers to our customers, hope these couple of great sites will supply you with some great deals and some very cool free stuff far into the future.

We like it when we can make you happy!

Mercardi, Movin' and Shakin' the Internet!

To say that things at Mercardi.com are exciting right now would be a major understatement, for although we have been around for awhile, things didn't start to really heat up until Mercardi arrived slap-dab in the middle of the information superhighway! However, unlike many fledgling businesses shooting for web stardom and finding meager results, we at Mercardi are creating fireworks, and with very good reason.

The business model of Mercardi is a win, win for both consumers and retailers. Consumers can buy unwanted gift cards from over 200 different retailers at deep discounts, creating savings for them and commerce for the companies who honor the gift cards, but that's only half the equation. Consumers can also sell their own unwanted or unused gift cards at up to 90% of the original value. Now you're probably thinking, 'yeah, and it probably takes about 6 months to get my money...there's always a catch." There you would be wrong as rain, Pardner. There truly is no 'catch,' with Mercardi, and you get your cold, hard cash in just a few days.

This is great news for everyone involved, even our frail economy!

Read this press release sent out by PRWeb about us, Mercardi the Gift Card People, and our wonderful gift card program. When you finish reading the hows, whos and whys contained in our press release be sure to check out the wheres; our website, our Facebook fan page, and of course, our Twitter page.

Take a minute to let us know what you think about Mercardi by commenting here on our blog, tweet until your hair's on fire, and join us on Facebook. Help us spread the word that is traveling like wildfire across the internet about MERCARDI.COM, but most importantly of all, get in the groove and use Mercardi to buy and sell gift cards!