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“[F]or the merchant, at least, the gift card is a godsend.
Just think of it: In the weeks leading up to Christmas, millions of people
visit your store or Web site and hand you billions of dollars in exchange for
nothing more than a plastic I.O.U. that may never even be redeemed. Best Buy,
for instance, earned $16 million last year in gift-card “breakage,” which is
the industry’s term for card value that was bought but never redeemed.” |