Cardpool (YC W10) Launches One Gift Card To Rule Them All | Hacker News Reader

Cardpool (YC W10) Launches One Gift Card To Rule Them All

techcrunch.com

48 pointsthankuz21 comments

So this meta-giftcard has even more hassle than a normal gift card, but without the shred of thoughtfullness that buying a standard gift card has. It's just as thoughtless as cash, but super-inconvenient. I don't get it.

One place you'd use something like this is for corporate gifts. In such a situation the goal is not the "thoughtfulness" you might aim for if you were buying a present for a friend. The buyers want something asymptotically close to cash.

Something similar is extremely common in Israel.

I think they evolved from lunch vouchers issued by companies to their employees and accepted by local restaurants. At this point they are basically currency accepted at at restaurants, supermarkets, clothes shops and issued by issuing companies.

I think it's driven by a combination of tax reasons and differentiation from cash.

Having worked in a corporate environment, these would be great. Giving gift cards is already a hassle (all the approvals you need to get), and you have to try and get GCs that your employees will like.

Agreed.

Also, what happens if there is a leftover balance on the meta-gift card? I get a $100 meta-giftcard from a friend and use it to buy a $50 best buy gift card and $40 home depot gift card on CardPool. Then, I am stuck with $10 balance on my meta-giftcard. Can I sell my meta-giftcard back to CardPool? Weirdly cyclical?

I would rather give someone cash and tell them about CardPool's service. That way they can use the cash to buy a $50 Best Buy gift card on CardPool (for the discount) and then they are left with $50 in cash which can be spent anywhere.

I'm pretty sure the gift card to rule them all is called "cash".

The one beautiful thing that cardpool can do that cash cant do is get you a discount without having to bargain. All you need is a little bit of foresight.

When I was going to buy my Droid X, I knew BestBuy was going to be selling it so I went on cardpool and bought two 100$ cards and got 6% off of 200 from the phone. Its a great service if you know your going to spend the money and want to reward yourself for planning ahead.

I hope you realize that the Cardpool marketplace requires sellers who aren't happy (or aren't wanting to redeem) the gift cards they have in hand. And they take a loss, of sorts, for you to get your discount. That doesn't happen with cash.

I'll also say that I'm glad Carpool exists to limit breakage to some extent, but I'd be much happier if gift cards were gone altogether. Your discount notwithstanding...

This was the first thought that popped into my head too. Gift cards exist because they mitigate the risk of an unwanted gift while also mostly avoiding the paradox of choice and the taboo of giving cash as a gift. A universal gift card would force the recipient to go through the hassle of getting a gift card first, albeit at a discount. Gift cards already display some laziness on the part of the gift-giver. A gift card for gift cards sorta takes that to a whole new level. Instead of saying "I don't know what you want to buy at this store that you shop at a lot", it says "I don't know where you shop at all...here's some bastardized version of a prepaid debit card...knock yourself out"

Actually it displays intellectual understanding and rationality on the part of the gift giver:

I understand that you, and only you, knows best what you desire and that the best I can do to help you is to give you the most universally desired means of exchange.

Gift cards are a ripoff and if you give them you are (normally) doing a disservice.

Ah yes, "intellectual understanding and rationality", the two emotions I want most connected with my next birthday.

(FWIW, I actually agree with you, and I imagine there are a lot of others. The hardest part is interacting with those who don't view rationality as an appropriate filter for a celebration, especially celebrating things like 'your not dying in the time it took for the earth to complete a full rotation of the sun', or 'a family-centric federal holiday to mark an apocryphal historical event that has developed societal importance'.)

Cash is still better: if the recipient wants to buy something from CardPool at a discount, they can. Or they can take advantage of any other discount or product anywhere.

This makes me wonder: is there some way to undo the taboo of a cash gift, but retain its economic efficiency?

Perhaps, encase the cash in something that, while not very expensive, required a lot of advance thought/planning?

For example: the enclosure-with-cash needed to be ordered long in advance. And also, encased inside with the cash is some dated and/or custom artifact, such as a personalized note or recommendations of things to buy.

Overall, it sends the message: I rationally want you to buy what you want, but I didn't just thoughtlessly drop a bill in an envelope at the last minute. I've been thinking of you on this gift-giving occasion for a while.

Not quite what you are describing but http://www.google.com/search?q=cash+gift+puzzle&tbs=shop...

"It’s similar in theory to buying an American Express gift card (though without the credit card fees). The Cardpool gift card makes a lot of sense for the startup and is sure to be a popular way to gift gift cards."

This sounds like you buy a Cardpool gift card and can then purchase specific gift cards FROM the Cardpool marketplace. How is that anything at all like an American Express gift card, where you can use the card immediately.

The American Express gift card doesn't get you a discount and (as you pointed out) skims some credit card fees from the top.

"As gift card companies vie for consumer dollars, Plastic Jungle, Cardpool have been consistently innovating around the gift card model." - Am I the only that had to re-read that sentence multiple times to work out they meant "Plastic Jungle AND Cardpool"?

After all that, they don't mention Plastic Jungle again in the article at all, so I'm not sure why it's even slipped in there.

Also, are TC taking the Demand Media approach now, and just doing as many articles as it takes until one popular one hits? There's a near identical article posted a couple of weeks ago. (http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/18/cardpool-wants-to-buy-and-s...)

There were also two articles about Cardpool's "reveal the online code before sending physical card" feature (http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/07/gift-card-marketplace-cardp...) (http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/20/cardpool-speeds-up-gift-car...).

It seems if anything, they're making a special effort to make sure Cardpool and Plastic Jungle are mentioned together as much as possible (including the SEO-style URL "gift-card-marketplace-cardpool-plasticjungle" instead of their usual article-relevant URLs).

There's at least one very similar competitor in the business space: Premiere Choice Award gift certificates sold by Hallmark Business Connections at http://www.premierechoiceaward.com. Employers purchase gift certificates, which can then be redeemed for an equivalent value with various merchants, a PDF listing of which appears at http://www.hallmarkbusinessconnections.com/merchant-list

Hallmark also sells the certificates paired with greeting cards under the brands Valued Expressions and Memorable Expressions.

Unfortunately, the user experience for the certificates is pretty horrific. The site has a turn-of-the-century design, and you have to manually enter a 30-digit code for each card. I was especially pleased to discover this when I received a $250 award in the form of 10 individual cards. 300 digits later, I was able to convert that value into its most fungible form: Amazon credit.

I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing Cardpool steal some of their marketshare.

I started writing on (defacing) cash I gave to friends for birthday's with the words "Gift Card". That works too.

Did anyone else think it was going to be a single programmable gift card that could be used at any store?

Brilliant.

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