4 posts tagged “gift card”

Did you shop for great deals on Black Friday or Cyber Monday?  Or did you observe Buy Nothing Day?

As I previously posted before I even saw the QotD, I did take advantage of some of the deals offered throughout the weekend.  GiftCards.com is offering $25 off when $100 worth of Visa gift cards are bought and the customer uses eBillme to pay.  

GiftCards.com, LLC is pleased to announce the addition of Jeff Lininger as President.  With the announcement of Lininger, GiftCards.com continues to announce exciting news on a consistent basis. 

Jason Wolfe, CEO of GiftCards.com, LLC commented, “Our key initiatives this year including our fulfillment center build out, our customer service center addition, CardTrack launch, and international expansion meant that the CEO and President roles needed to be split to fully realize our vision for the company.”

Lininger brings over 20 years of extensive knowledge in business and corporate development, strategic planning, product and brand management, operations, marketing, and sales.  He was formerly with Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc., serving as Vice President of Business Development.  His past expertise as an executive, not only with Jackson Hewitt, but also with Reliant Energy and Compaq Computer Corporation(currently HP), will provide GiftCards.com with the continued leadership and knowledge in the rapidly growing prepaid gift card industry.     

With the growth that GiftCards.com is continuing to undergo, the addition of Jeff Lininger as President will serve as a key piece in evolution of the number one Visa gift card provider. 

Okay.  I have been writing this blog for about two weeks and trying to give a fairly good run-down of what GiftCards.com is all about to entice people to hopefully go check us out.  I figured this morning I would sit down and share a little history about how GiftCards.com came to fruition.  I am new to the company; I started in early August, and have been working on writing press releases for the company, as you have seen previously on my page.  In order to write these releases I have been gathering info from the President and CEO, Jason Wolfe.  This information has helped me greatly in understanding the company and what it is that we do, what we have done in the past, and how and why we are doing so well now.  It has been an incredible learning experience for me, because what better way to learn about the company you are diving yourself head into than to research and write about it. 

GiftCards.com began selling a Visa brand gift card in September 2004.  Prior to this they were DirectCertificates.com and focused on selling gift certificates and gift cards.  However, the gift cards were not Visa gift cards, they were various merchant gift cards and were not as powerful as a Visa gift card.  I say powerful because I can go to any store in the mall or any restaurant and use a Visa brand gift card, but I have to go to a specific place if that is where the card is from.  In turn, giving someone a gift card with the power of Visa attached to it, they can take it all around this world with them and have very little problem using it.  

So, in April 2003 DirectCertificates.com purchased the domain name GiftCards.com and got started on reformatting the way they were going to sell gift cards on the Internet.  It took some time and a great deal of effort to ensure everything was in line to launch the site on September 1, 2004.  Now some may say a whole year from start to finish to start selling a product online, but considering the fact that the product is cash and is lot more difficult to sell online than a Steelers Terrible Towel.  It is not that the product is a tough sale, it may even be easier than many products, but in order to ensure that you are receiving a valid gift card that you will have zero issues with no matter where you are in the world, there is more to take into account before making the product available to the millions of people.

Once all of the details were worked out and the partnerships were set with companies like Visa, Metropolitan Card Solutions, WildCard Systems, and First Gulf, N.A., the site was ready to release to the public.  From there the sky was the limit on what GiftCards.com could do for its consumers.  With extremely strong backing partners, the bar was raised to explore the different facets of what a gift card can do for a consumer and a corporate client. 

Since 2003 GiftCards.com has been very successful in providing gift cards to thousands of individuals and corporations.  With last years stats' showing that over $80 billion was spent on gift cards and the average person will be almost 5 cards per year (4.6), it is no surprise that GiftCards.com drives a tremendous amount of traffic to their site and company.  With a solid platform like the Visa brand gift card and different ways to personalize the cards, use them as ATM cards, and re-load them, GiftCards.com has grown very knowledgeable of what its consumers are looking for.

GiftCards.com has been able to maintain their focus on both the corporate client as well as the individual.  We do very well with incentive programs for businesses, but we also are successful in supplying a great gift to an individual.  Gift cards do not get a bad rap as much as they used to, obviously with sales being where they are across the board for gift cards, but GiftCards.com has found a great way to personalize them for an individual or company and make the gift of cash special.