But what if that gift card only set you back $90? That extra $10 stays with you. Purchasing discounted gift cards in this manner can help youkeep hundreds of dollars in your wallet each year.
A prior piece on Savinly discussed selling unused gift cards to pick up some extra money, and that’s a perfectly reasonable move. Lots of us receive cards for retailers we don’t frequent or that aren’t convenient to reach.
Instead of letting them gather dust or clutter your wallet, you can easily sell them online… albeit at a reduced price.
The flip side is that other people are offering discounted cards you might actually want — and grabbing those markdowns can cut costs on items you were going to buy anyway.
To see how this works in practice, I tried out a gift card resale site to compare the deals with buying a card at face value. With a relocation on the horizon and our new place needing some fixes, I knew I’d be spending hundreds at The Home Depot, so my experiment centered on its gift cards.
Gift Card Zen
Gift Card Zen stands out from other marketplaces in a few ways. As a safety step, it phones all first-time customers, and it also applies a short hold on your initial order. Once that’s handled, however, purchasing becomes more straightforward.
Gift Card Zen keeps things straightforward by listing only cards without expiration dates, so you don’t have to remember to check or worry about a looming deadline.
Currently, the site carries cards from roughly 200 retailers. The company won’t offer refunds for buyer’s regret, but promises it “will never leave you with a card that is not working.”
The one drawback? The best bargain I uncovered saved me only 8% on my purchase.
Raise
Raise is another destination for buying discounted gift cards, though good deals tend to disappear fast. Most listings move within 24 hours, so if you spot something appealing, it’s wise to buy rather than watch it too long.
The site claims to list gift cards from “thousands” of brands, and you can sift through offerings by brand or filter by balance, category, or card type (physical or e-card).
The sharpest price I found for a Home Depot card would have saved me 10%.
Additional Gift Card Marketplaces
There are numerous other discount gift-card vendors on the web. Typically you’ll find cards with balances ranging from $2 to $100, though some go as high as $500. If you haven’t used a particular site before, make your first purchase a modest one.
Some platforms don’t sell directly but connect buyers and sellers. For instance, Gift Card Granny showed 1,600 Home Depot listings when I checked, but each item linked out to a different site where the seller had actually posted the card.
You can also buy gift cards on eBay, but you’ll need to monitor auction trends and factor in shipping fees.
How to Make Discounted Gift Cards Work for You
If your time is valuable, you won’t want to spend five minutes buying a $2 gift card to save 20 cents. It also doesn’t make sense to buy cards for stores you’re uncertain you’ll patronize (though you could always resell them back through one of these sites).
A smart approach, once you find a marketplace you trust, is to buy larger amounts of cards at once for retailers you know you’ll shop with.
If you’re comfortable taking a few risks and have an entrepreneurial streak, you could try gift-card arbitrage: buy low on eBay and then locate the best outlets to resell your cards for a markup.
Or you could purchase unused gift cards from family and friends at, say, 50% of face value and then resell them online for a profit.
Even if you’re not interested in making a business of it, the opportunity to shave dollars off routine purchases is evident.
Your Turn: Have you ever purchased discounted gift cards?
Alex Park is the writer of “101 Practical Ways to Earn Extra Cash” and runs EveryWayToMakeMoney.com. He’s worked as a moving assistant, craftsperson, search evaluator, house renovator, tram operator, process server, mock juror, and casino dealer. Of the many ways he’s earned money, writing remains his favorite (so far).
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