Using Perspective to View Gift Cards

While shopping a couple of days ago, I noticed some people gathered around the gift card display at a local store. There were gift cards for a number of other stores and restaurants in town. 

There are a number of ways to interpret this. One is that those people were too lazy to try to figure out a good Christmas gift for some of the people on their list and decided to give them a gift card, which is only slightly more personal than an envelope full of cash. Another is that they didn’t really understand the tastes of the people they were buying for, for example, unable to come up with something appropriate for teenaged grandchildren living many miles away. A third is that it is so difficult to buy for people who have met all their wants and needs. The third is a distinct possibility in a country where nearly everyone has enough stuff. 

Gift cards originated in the mid-1990s. Around that time common ads asked, “What can you get for the man (or woman) who has everything?" Yes, Americans at that time already had most of everything they needed, especially compared to earlier times. When they were popular, the solution recommended by these ads was something exotic or unusual – and probably not what the person really wanted anyway.

Since then the market for gift cards has skyrocketed, growing from just over $80 billion in 2009 to $160 billion last year. Consumers are tempted with special offers and discounts from nearly every store or restaurant. Retailers also love gift cards because a small fraction of them goes unspent, pure profit for the store, and when people use them they typically spend more than the value of the card.

Does this mean that the number of men (and women) who have everything is growing? That could be the case, but we don’t seem to appreciate it. Gift cards are a convenient way to deal with this problem, if it can be called a problem.

This information comes from the Progress Paradox (p. 80) written in 2003: “Average Americans…not only live better than more than 99 percent of the human beings who have ever existed, they live better than most of the royalty in history.” We are better off than ever. In 1900, the life expectancy of an average American at birth was approximately 47 years, and what were then considered luxuries only enjoyed by the very rich are now very common, considered as necessities by nearly everyone. We also have conveniences they never dreamed of. In a historical sense twenty-first century Americans are the people who have everything - making it so hard to shop for us.

A good, healthy reaction at seeing the crowd around the gift cards is to rejoice that those people have it so good that they can afford to buy the gift cards (at an average around $50 each) and that their friends and relatives are so well off that it presents a challenge to those trying to figure out what to get them for Christmas (or any other occasion). 

This good feeling about the state of our society may help to buoy us up over the weeks ahead – at least until Congress is back in session.