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Comment by stephengillie | Hacker News Reader

Example: If you have a friend who likes Jamba Juice, and you wanted to get the person a gift card.

Are you going to spend the time to actually find a Jamba Juice and go there to buy a gift card? Or are you going to just click "buy as a gift for Friend" on Facebook?

Another option is to buy the gift card at another store, but then you're just filling Safeway's data hole or Target's data hole instead of Facebook's. Is that better?

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Seriously who buys gift cards for a shop that sells drinks?

More importantly - a gift card in a shop can be bought with cash if you choose, and even if I used a credit card, my bank doesn't show me ads because I shopped somewhere

  > Seriously who buys gift cards for a shop that sells drinks?

I had to re-read that several times, trying to decide if your 'Seriously' was seriously serious or not...

http://www.statisticbrain.com/starbucks-company-statistics/

  > Starbucks Company Statistics
  >  Year  Value of Gift Card Activations
  >  2011  $820,500,000

Oh of course I forgot we're talking about Americans.

I should have asked what sane person buys a gift card for a shop that sells drinks.

Maybe they're normal, and you're insane. Data sure supports that idea :)

I find they're actually quite good gifts for smaller or more casual situations - as a thank you for someone who did you a favor, or when you don't know someone all that well. Or even for people who just like coffee.

Jamba Juice is one thing because it isn't on every street corner, whereas buying Starbucks cards for people you know spend money on coffee every morning is not a bad investment. Furthermore, with Starbucks' cards, it allows you to start redeeming points for more drinks and gives you incentive to keep re-upping the value to earn those points. I get a free drink/food item every two weeks from what started as a gift card that turned into a gold card. Do I have a consumption problem? Sure. But it was a benefit to my already-shitty lifestyle and I can't complain.

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