It has been well documented that people in western societies are apparently becoming increasingly ‘time poor’. As a result, a myriad of innovation and invention has occurred to assist you and me in our quest to get things done quicker.

One of the more interesting developments that was brought to our attention by one of the country’s leading Hospitality executives is the amazing revival of the gift card.

What was once seen as the saviour of the desperate old uncle who had no idea what to buy a nephew or niece at Christmas has undergone a total make over.

But this revival isn’t just a move from a paper certificate to a plastic card, there has also been a massive uptake in those who are now providing these cards. What was once the domain of gift and record stores (that’s showing my age!) and more recently Apple with their ubiquitous I-tunes card, is now available from a simply stunning number of suppliers. From phone companies, accommodation providers, to an endless array of white goods and electronics retailers and amazingly, even banks, who provide fixed limit debit cards.

Additionally, what used to sit behind the counter at David Jones and Myer is now out from behind the counter and even out of the store! We recently spotted an entire rack of gift cards in a 7-11 and then again in a service station.

Gift cards have suddenly become an acceptable gift, to give and to receive.

Why? Well, we believe it is a great example of a solution providing greater levels of satisfaction to the ‘jobs’ a customer is trying to get done.

For example, a simple analysis may find that the person trying to source a gift is trying to get a number of jobs done, these could possibly include:

Functional Jobs:

• Providing a gift at the time of the event
• Managing their personal budget
• Managing the time it takes to choose, locate and acquire the gift

Social Jobs:

• Be perceived as being a caring and thoughtful person by the receiver
• Be perceived as being as a good friend by others

Emotional Jobs:

• Feel that I am a good person

Previous solutions to this job required people to trade off their ‘functional jobs’ ( budget, time it takes to shop) with their ‘Emotional’ and ‘Social’ jobs associated with the gift itself. Even online shopping fails to solve this problem, because the ‘giver’ still needs to spend time, albeit online, shopping.

Gift cards now seem to provide a much better solution. The erosion of the stigma attached to gift cards has allowed customers to solve what has become more important to them ‘reducing the time to source the gift.’

How good is this solution? Well according to a report, American Consumers were forecast to spend $26.3 billion on gift cards last Christmas. It would seem that Gift cards have the potential to play a significant role in the way retailers operate,

What’s the down side? Well, as long as the stigma of scrimping on time stays away, the consumer is pretty happy. For retailers and suppliers of cards? The interesting question that arises is how much of this ‘new currency’ will remained unredeemed? If my current collection ($540), is any indication, probably a significant amount. What problems this creates for suppliers of these cards has yet to be played out.

Michael R Johnson