I can't stand the new SEARS ad starring Ty Pennington, spiky-haired surfer-dork of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition fame. (You're poor! You're dying! Here's a house! SEARS SEARS SEARS SEARS SEARS!)
In the ad, Pennington states, "Remember all those SEARS gift cards you got over the holidays? Now's the time to take the card, go to SEARS, and buy something." And he says it in this he-better-be-joking-but-I-think-he's-not tone that suggests John Q. Public doesn't know what to do with a gift card.
This plastic credit-cardy thing? I'm a supposed-ta exchange it for goods and services?
I thought it was for cleaning varmint outta my teeth after I done did eat me some supper.
A-hole.
I'm also annoyed in general at retailers' desperate tactics to get us to spend our gift cards under the guise of genuinely giving a shit. "Use your gift cards now! Everything is at least 7% off! We can't guarantee we'll have anything left on our shelves for the rest of the year other than Season 4 of ALF!" Please. Gift card sales can't be registered on the books as a sale until they are redeemed, and that's the only reason Walmart is practically begging us to buy a crock pot. What a crock.
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8 comments:
Despite my MBA, Carli, I didn't realize that the sales weren't registered until the giftcard is redeemed. No wonder they want us to use them quickly. It helps their quarter.
Michele sent me over for a finance lesson. Thanks!
You are correct! I knew about the gift card thing but failed big time to connect it to the rash of commercials to use them. I'm VERY blonde sometimes!!
I can't stand Ty either. He's been annoying me since I first saw him on "Trading Spaces" and he's been getting worse since. Bleargh. And I noticed the same thing about the Sears commercials. No, I'm going to take my Sears gift cards to Target. Duh!
Oh, retail. You're so creepy. If only there were some way to buy things without dealing with you...
Hello from Michele's!
Thanks for stopping by my blog earlier, You're right about the gift cards, & that commercial sounds insulting (I haven't seen it I have DVR) Happy New Year.
Yup, I hear ya. I've heard that some (like AMEX) start to incur a fee if not used by a certain date (a year??). In other words, if not used in a certain time, they will eat themselves up. I guess that can be registered as a sale!
mike
BTW: Michele sends her regards
Gift cards are a ripoff. they want you to redeem them...but not all of it. They want that last couple of bucks to hit expiration...billions of dollars to be made that way.
here via Michele's :)
Some gift cards don't expire. You can usually check the policy on the back of the card or online.
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