Gift Cards

Never give gift cards as gifts. Let me repeat, "Never, never give gift cards as gifts!" I know I was told never to say never, but I simply can't help myself. No one should buy a gift card in lieu of a real gift or cash. Why do I make such a definitive and absolute statement? The Toyota Way has taught me that the primary goal of an efficient company is to decrease the time from when the company buys the raw materials/products to when they collect the money for the products they sell. Now companies sell you the opportunity(gift card) to purchase something more expensive(inflation) in the future, whoohoo! The marketing department and the city government invented gift cards as a way to increase the company and city profits, they claim the money as quarterly profits and they still have the products (the value of their company has increased). Most people spend more money than the gift card includes because they don't want to leave any money left on the card again increasing money made by the company. Finally there is a statistic that a quarter of all gift cards aren't redeemed. Sorry grandma. What is the benefit? Gift cards make the giver feel the gift is more "personal." But they make the gift less valuable. They decrease the value of cash by reducing the receivers' options while the time value of money is decreasing the value due to inflation and lost opportunity costs. The giver has to pay sales tax on the gift card, and the receivers must again pay sales tax on the products purchased with the card. Where is the value?