This will be short.
The scene: a table full of 5dollar Starbuck Gift cards. I get these all the time in the mail. I never use them. They come from my realtor, the plumber, our dentist. They pay for them. We forget to use them. Five bucks just isn't enough to motivate me to go to Starbucks.
Perhaps if I didn't work in the middle of nowhere everyday?
Who knows but (!) here is the new value sketch. All gift cards, ALL gift cards no longer milking consumers for unused value. No more innovative corporate accounting and no more picking up the last $2.11 of unused value. No more drawing interest on the dollars spent that will never transfer for a single good or service. That's right, I pitch that Amazon or PayPal take over the entire Gift Card industry and turn control back to the consumer.
It would work like this: just like Kickstarter. That's right kickstarter.com uses Amazon because that's the only "bank" that could enable their system of "transact" but only pay if and when a project gets fully funded.
So in gift card land it'd mean that I would buy a gift card on amazon. That gift card would be for use at any store but let's say the store is Sears. My brother could use the card at Sears. If the card was for his birthday it'd be personalized saying it was for his birthday (Amazon can do such things because they are mysterious and magical). On the back of the card it would say, "use before your next birthday, void after one year."
I get charged immediately and money held in said magical Amazon "bank" (of sorts). My brother has a year to spend $50 bucks or however much I want to give him, on whatever he wants from Sears. At the end of the year anything left over, any cash or change either goes back into my bank account OR, if my brother has an Amazon account and I choose to let him have the change, it goes into my bro's account. Just for the sake of today's save-the-world-with-philanthropy mantra the cash can even be returned in the form of a donation to your favorite charity. This feature will seem especially attractive to large corporations who give out $5 gift cards as thank you's to existing customers or bribes for prospects...or the corporation can take back the unspent cash at the end of the year to make their books that much more attractive to investors...and bosses. ...and accountants factoring ROI for sales and marketing budgets!
Overall, the gig would be cleaner for a consumer. Their money spent will actually get spent and they will get confirmation of spend or their money back, LITERALLY! Sort of sounds like a commercial.
Alright, honestly I thought that'd be way shorter. -surprised even me by how fun that was to riff on. I could keep jammin on it but you get the pic!
Now go forth and ask Amazon to make it so! It'll be magical, I promise.
The scene: a table full of 5dollar Starbuck Gift cards. I get these all the time in the mail. I never use them. They come from my realtor, the plumber, our dentist. They pay for them. We forget to use them. Five bucks just isn't enough to motivate me to go to Starbucks.
Perhaps if I didn't work in the middle of nowhere everyday?
Who knows but (!) here is the new value sketch. All gift cards, ALL gift cards no longer milking consumers for unused value. No more innovative corporate accounting and no more picking up the last $2.11 of unused value. No more drawing interest on the dollars spent that will never transfer for a single good or service. That's right, I pitch that Amazon or PayPal take over the entire Gift Card industry and turn control back to the consumer.
It would work like this: just like Kickstarter. That's right kickstarter.com uses Amazon because that's the only "bank" that could enable their system of "transact" but only pay if and when a project gets fully funded.
So in gift card land it'd mean that I would buy a gift card on amazon. That gift card would be for use at any store but let's say the store is Sears. My brother could use the card at Sears. If the card was for his birthday it'd be personalized saying it was for his birthday (Amazon can do such things because they are mysterious and magical). On the back of the card it would say, "use before your next birthday, void after one year."
I get charged immediately and money held in said magical Amazon "bank" (of sorts). My brother has a year to spend $50 bucks or however much I want to give him, on whatever he wants from Sears. At the end of the year anything left over, any cash or change either goes back into my bank account OR, if my brother has an Amazon account and I choose to let him have the change, it goes into my bro's account. Just for the sake of today's save-the-world-with-philanthropy mantra the cash can even be returned in the form of a donation to your favorite charity. This feature will seem especially attractive to large corporations who give out $5 gift cards as thank you's to existing customers or bribes for prospects...or the corporation can take back the unspent cash at the end of the year to make their books that much more attractive to investors...and bosses. ...and accountants factoring ROI for sales and marketing budgets!
Overall, the gig would be cleaner for a consumer. Their money spent will actually get spent and they will get confirmation of spend or their money back, LITERALLY! Sort of sounds like a commercial.
Alright, honestly I thought that'd be way shorter. -surprised even me by how fun that was to riff on. I could keep jammin on it but you get the pic!
Now go forth and ask Amazon to make it so! It'll be magical, I promise.
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