Welcome eBay Buyers

11 March, 2012

eCardExchange is proud to announce that our gift cards sell for an average of 5% or more less than our biggest competitor, eBay. Thank you to our E-Card Community for making this possible. Please note that we are the only gift card exchange company that offers the most types of payment including: visa, master card, discover, american express (through PayPal), PayPal, Google Wallet, Diner's Club and many more. Please visit us daily as we continue to add new sales and discounts to all your favorite stores. 

Buying “Used” Gift Cards

Let me use myself as an example. My wife and I just bought a house. (Unfortunately, there are no gift cards for houses.) We are looking to spend some money decorating the home well because this is the place where we plan to live for 20 or 30 years. We are willing to spend a little bit of money today for long term value. At the same time, if we could decorate inexpensively but in a way that was pleasing to us, that’s even better.

We came across a rug at Pier 1 Imports that we liked. It was the right color, pattern, and so on. It was also attractive to us because it was on clearance for 50% off. We’re talking a $300 rug available for $150. We know they are still making money at that price point, but rugs are surprisingly expensive. (We know because we did research – key to identifying true values.)

Instead of rushing out to the nearest store and snagging one of the rugs, we thought we could get a better deal. Since it is on clearance, we  probably can’t negotiate down with the clerk in the store. That’s a given. So we go to the next best option: buying a Pier  gift card from someone else at a discount.

There are several popular websites that will buy your gift card from you and resell it to another customer. You can sell your unwanted funds, get the cash, and go on your way. A site like E Card Exchange is the most popular. So we visited the site and did a search for Pier 1 cards at around $150.

We were able to identify a card valued at $150 but sold to us at a 15% discount ($127.50). For a few clicks of a button we just saved $22.50. So simple.

“Ah, but the rug is on clearance! What happens if you go to the store and there are no more rugs?”, thinks the reader.

Great point. Before we ordered the gift card (I don’t want to be stuck with a $150 gift card to a store we rarely shop at) we went to the store tonight and asked if they could hold it for a few days. They said they could only hold it for 24 hours.

Instead of giving up, I asked the clerk what their return policy was. She explained it to me, and I asked if we would be able to buy the rug tonight on our credit card, and when we had the gift card, bring the receipt back to “return” the rug, then re-buy it with the gift card. She checked with her manager and it was no problem.

This is a win in multiple ways: we gained an extra 7.5% of discount (for a total discount of 57.5%) worth an extra $22.50 (total savings of $172.50 off of retail) for a few clicks of a button, we aren’t stuck with a gift card to a store we don’t regularly shop at, and we got what we wanted.

That’s a significant win. It isn’t a big win because we’re not going to get rich off of a $22 discount (or really, a $172 discount). But it is significant because we saved a nice chunk of change on something we were going to buy regardless of the discount, and we didn’t have to exert a lot of effort to get it.

The next time you go to buy something, anything, check out this used gift card website. Has anyone else done this?