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There are a lot of mom and pop stores and restaurants that will suffer and may go out of business. If there is a secure, convenient website to set up gift card

by tcbawo 7y ago

There are a lot of mom and pop stores and restaurants that will suffer and may go out of business. If there is a secure, convenient website to set up gift card purchases, it might keep these places afloat.

wenc 7y ago
I was thinking this too, but I'm not convinced the gift card idea, as it stands, will work for all businesses. There needs to be some creative thinking to make it truly help small businesses. Gift cards are a deferred liability -- they help cash flow now but in the future when everybody redeems them, they're going to eat away at future income, which doesn't leave the mom and pop store necessarily in a better state. The hope is: (1) a large percentage of folks never redeem their gift cards; (2) mom-and-pops can accommodate the increased demand in the future and still make future income. (3) they can set really limited expiry dates. But if these assumptions are not true, they will still have to close. (but yes, let's do gift cards for businesses where these assumptions are true) In some cases, gift cards are not useful especially for non-scalable businesses like barbershops, which have a finite number of appointment slots. Gift cards just delay the inevitable. Barbers can extend hours and open up more slots but they might never catch up. A more appealing idea is a temporary UBI but then we're wading into political territory. And even with a UBI, it doesn't help businesses with uncertain demand and perishable inventories. I really want to help small businesses: any thoughts from other folks here? Is there something else we can do? Are there good/better solutions?
- tcbawo 7y ago
  Maybe something like GoFundMe but with gift cards that have <100% redemption value, so it's neither entirely charity or unfunded liability. You need some transparency into the funding goals. Maybe even provide some sliding scale where after a certain amount purchased, the gift cards trend upwards towards 100%.
- gus_massa 7y ago
  What if it is a mix of a gift card and a discount card? For example I pay now $100, and I get 25% discounts later until I the total amount of discount reach $100. It will not fix the problem of the loose of income, but it would make the low and recovery part softer.
headgasket 7y ago
Good idea! An app to create and manage these gift card/vouchers with specific window of expiration. By limiting the window of validity the shop can prevent too many gift cards to be valid at once (limit over sell of time slots for a service business). There could even be an insurance provider side business to insure the gift card in case the mom and pop ends up belly up.

by tcbawo 7y ago

wenc 7y ago

I was thinking this too, but I'm not convinced the gift card idea, as it stands, will work for all businesses. There needs to be some creative thinking to make it truly help small businesses. Gift cards are a deferred liability -- they help cash flow now but in the future when everybody redeems them, they're going to eat away at future income, which doesn't leave the mom and pop store necessarily in a better state. The hope is: (1) a large percentage of folks never redeem their gift cards; (2) mom-and-pops can accommodate the increased demand in the future and still make future income. (3) they can set really limited expiry dates. But if these assumptions are not true, they will still have to close. (but yes, let's do gift cards for businesses where these assumptions are true) In some cases, gift cards are not useful especially for non-scalable businesses like barbershops, which have a finite number of appointment slots. Gift cards just delay the inevitable. Barbers can extend hours and open up more slots but they might never catch up. A more appealing idea is a temporary UBI but then we're wading into political territory. And even with a UBI, it doesn't help businesses with uncertain demand and perishable inventories. I really want to help small businesses: any thoughts from other folks here? Is there something else we can do? Are there good/better solutions?

tcbawo 7y ago
Maybe something like GoFundMe but with gift cards that have <100% redemption value, so it's neither entirely charity or unfunded liability. You need some transparency into the funding goals. Maybe even provide some sliding scale where after a certain amount purchased, the gift cards trend upwards towards 100%.
gus_massa 7y ago
What if it is a mix of a gift card and a discount card? For example I pay now $100, and I get 25% discounts later until I the total amount of discount reach $100. It will not fix the problem of the loose of income, but it would make the low and recovery part softer.

headgasket 7y ago

Good idea! An app to create and manage these gift card/vouchers with specific window of expiration. By limiting the window of validity the shop can prevent too many gift cards to be valid at once (limit over sell of time slots for a service business). There could even be an insurance provider side business to insure the gift card in case the mom and pop ends up belly up.