Jim at Blueprint For Financial Prosperity asks an interesting question, why do people like gift vouchers?
It’s a question I’ve asked myself in the past – why do we buy vouchers for people to spend in one particular shop, when you could give them cash which is accepted on all items in each and every shop in the country (didn’t Jasper Carrot do a joke about this very subject quite a few years ago – or maybe that was Postal Orders – remember them?). Vouchers can expire, in my experience they get destroyed in your wallet because they’re left in there for so long, making it embarrassing to hand over a scrap of paper at the till.
Anyway, the comment I left there summed up the reasons I could think of giving them:
…you know that the money is being spent on something they want, rather than just being spent on anything. If you give cash, it disappears into their wallet or their account and is kind of forgotten about. With a gift card, they’ll think of you when they spend it and recognise it as being a gift from you.
For example, rather than spending the cash paying for toilet rolls or bin bags, you know they’re buying themselves a nice new book (that they’ll never read) or a CD (that they would have downloaded anyway).
Do you still buy gift vouchers? If so, why? Do you really think they show more thought has gone into the gift?! Are we missing something? Let us know in the comments below.
