By Brad Ziegler
The holiday gift card has long had a negative connotation, thought of as a last-minute purchase by someone who really doesn’t know you well or a gift that lacked effort by someone who does. The more generic the gift card, the lamer the gift. Perceptions about gift cards are changing, however, fueled by shifts in shopping habits due to the pandemic and a younger demographic becoming a larger part of the holiday gift market.
A recent poll found that more than half of millennials were more likely to give a gift card than a physical gift and nearly two thirds of them were hoping to receive more gift cards than actual gifts during the holiday season. They preferred the flexibility of a gift card, and the reduced likelihood of needing to exchange a gift for a different size, a different color or just something different. They also liked to be able to use the gift card to augment their resources to buy something nicer for themselves than they could afford without the gift card. Electronic gift cards can also be easily and quickly delivered to those that you are not getting together with over the holidays without having to worry if they will get delivered in time or at all.
Young people have also been preferring experiential gifts over receiving more “stuff” for several years and the decluttering trend that has been embraced by people of all ages supports this desire to “do more” and “own less.” Giving a gift of an experience can often be more easily done through a gift card. Gift cards for services are also popular, and there are a broad range of options to meet the gift recipients needs or desires.
Giving a gift card doesn’t mean that you can’t support local businesses at the same time, as many offer a variety of gift card options to gift givers. For those seeking to provide a fun experience, a gift card to Go Ape Zipline in Swope Park can be purchased from their website at www.goape.com. Also in Swope Park, Starlight Theatre has gift cards available for that lover of the arts in your life, whether it be for live theater or concerts, and they offer experiences for all ages at www.kcstarlight.com.
Many service providers provide gift card options that can make great gifts. Landscaping services can be purchased for someone else’s yard at Rosehill Gardens (www.rosehillgardens.com) and gift cards are available for home organization services by Bee Organized (https://beeorganized.com/kansas-city/). You can purchase lessons to fuel the gift recipient’s interests in learning, whether it be to play the violin (www.drunkenfiddles.com), to sew (www.kcmakerstudio.com) or to expand their culinary skills (www.kcculinary.com).
A gift of locally made décor can brighten up any environment, and a gift card from Belger Arts (www.belgerarts.org) can be used to purchase a locally made piece of art or jewelry, while a gift card from Sideline Custom Floral Designs or Fiddly Fig can provide a floral arrangement or an upgrade to a floral arrangement purchase.
A final aspect of a gift card that can make it a popular gift to receive is that they are easy to re-gift! Unlike the proverbial holiday fruit cake, a gift card can be a gift that is appreciated by not only the original recipient, but by subsequent recipients!
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