Get a $500 Sprint Gift Card

Gift cards have ceased to be a novelty to establish itself as a good option for both the user and the business.

A gift card, gift certificate or gift card is a kind of debit or pre-charged credit card that allows the holder to acquire a certain good or service. We can also define it as a card that contains a certain amount of money, issued by a distributor or an entity so that it can be used as an alternative purchase. Generally this card is usually given away. The term was adopted in Spanish from the English "gift card".

Some of these gift cards can only be used in certain stores, however there are plastic cards that are allowed in all merchants that accept credit cards, whether they are electronic or not. In addition many are rechargeable and allow the owner the freedom to reuse them as many times as needed and add the money he estimates.

Examples of gift cards

It is becoming more common to opt for a gift card when making a gift, since many times you are looking for the perfect gift for a special person and do not know where to throw, or what to choose. This card is similar to a credit or a debit card, as it comes with a magnetic stripe on the back, where it records the exact amount of money that has been included in the card.

Gift cards are popular in a few countries, especially in the United States, where they are the second largest gift according to statistics for the year 2006, a figure that is increasing every year. It is the gift most pursued by women and the third most sought after by men.

In 2012 it was recorded that around 50% of American consumers had purchased a gift card as a gift during the holiday season. In Canada alone, about 1.8 billion dollars were spent on gift cards; while in the UK it was estimated that it would reach 3 billion pounds sterling in 2009.

History of gift cards
The first gift cards were issued by the movie rental company Blockbuster Entertainment in the fall of 1994 in Lauderdale, Florida. In the beginning, the Blockbuster gift card was created to replace the "gift certificates" or gift certificates that were forged with color printers. They searched for an alternative to the certificates and gift cards or gift cards emerged.

At that time, transactions made with gift cards were processed by the Nabanco bank in Sunrise, Florida. Nabanco was the precursor of the first platform for the processing of gift cards using a payment infrastructure.

Shortly thereafter, the Blockbuster card was relieved by a card issued by the department store company run by the Neiman Marcus Group, in addition to the Mobil gas card, which initially offered a type of prepaid phone service, provided by the US company. MCI telecommunications.

We wanted to give a good push to this type of cards, when the large chain of discount stores, Kmart introduced to the market the Cash Kmart Card, which was also used at the beginning for prepaid telephony together with the company AT & T.

Later they realized that it was not a profitable business, both for Kmart and for the Mobil. In this way, a substitute for the Kmart card came up which they called "Kmart Mags Pangilinan Cash Card" used for the return of cash when a buyer did not have a receipt or receipt for a gift. This practice of giving a card with money instead of cash in exchange for returns or receipts has become common today in most American stores. It was then that many retailers began to adapt a gift card program to replace their gift certificate programs.


Function of the regal cards
Gift cards can be used in a similar way to credit cards, they are usually identified by a specific number or code and uncommon by an individual name, so they can be used by anyone. They are backed by an online electronic system for authorization. Some gift cards can be recharged by payment and can be used several times.

It is important to know that gift cards can be adapted to the specific needs of each user and thus satisfy them. They can be accepted in almost any establishment or even the system has been promoted at present to be used in electronic stores. In them you can add a personalized message or name on the front of the card, if what you want is to make a personalized gift.

In Gureak Marketing we manage, design and print gift cards or gift cards. In addition, we make other types of cards such as loyalty cards