In The New York Times Magazine: Functional gift cards

CARD TRICKS:
The latest spin on the most transactional form of holiday giving.

This week in Consumed:

The nature and meaning of the gift has been mulled by philosophers, anthropologists and economists for many decades. The thinking on gift cards is less extensive but has its place in that history. To the believer in the idea of gift-giving as a practice that binds individuals, and indeed societies, a store-specific piece of plastic preloaded with $50 is an offensively thoughtless dodge. To the believer in marketplace solutions to the problem of well-meaning but misguided givers, it’s a triumph of efficiency. Gift-card sales are expected to suffer this year on widely publicized fears that they’ll be rendered worthless by failing retailers. But that has overshadowed the more surprising development in the nature of the form: the introduction of gift cards with functionality….

Who gets the real payoff from this development? Read the column in the December 21, 2008, issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.

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