Westfield charging for gift vouchers!

shaun_from_Africa

but a gift card is an incentive to spend in shops that maybe people may not have chosen to visit and thus gives them a bit of extra business

But as an incentive is by its very definition, something that is done in order to try get a person to do an action, I would have thought that by charging extra for a gift card, the outcome may well be the opposite.

Saying to someone "here's a voucher for £20 to spend in our shops, but it will cost you £22" doesn't sound to me like a good incentive to visit that shop.

Giving someone a small discount may well be a good incentive, but charging more?

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

With the number of businesses that have gone bust, taking the voucher money with them, I would NEVER risk it in the first place, admin fee or not.

Just hand over a card with a nice, crisp note (or two) in there. It's far less risk.


(And if anybody tried to force me into one of those hellholes by only providing a gift card, I'd probably let it expire, as I hate shopping malls with a vengeance. So it would be a double/quadruple/twentytwopule waste of money)


Send cheques, make account transfers or hand over cash.

Problem solved.

Jeff_Bridges_hair

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

But as an incentive is by its very definition, something that is done in order to try get a person to do an action, I would have thought that by charging extra for a gift card, the outcome may well be the opposite.

Saying to someone "here's a voucher for £20 to spend in our shops, but it will cost you £22" doesn't sound to me like a good incentive to visit that shop.

Giving someone a small discount may well be a good incentive, but charging more?

didnt say I agreed with it just that why they probably charged for it.

prowla

Azari wrote: »

They just want you to pay them £2 so that they can have the use of your money between the time of purchase and the time the recipient spends.

What could be fairer?


ETA: If you weren't an established member I'd assume it was one of the recurring trolls making it up as the idea seems so crackpot!

Isn't it a charge, as opposed to credit on the gift?

qetu1357

katejo wrote: »

Fairly recently I was buying a CD in HMV when i was asked if i would like a loyalty card. I use such cards in places like Costa Coffee so I initially agreed until I was told that the initial card cost £3. I refused to buy one. My local branch of HMV has since closed down.
I have not come across such a charge for a simple loyalty card anywhere else.

Odeon charge for their loyalty card..............

Saturnalia

I'm with the others. Skip the fee, give the recipient the cash.

Or if you live local to them and the Westfield complex, go for a shopping trip there and tell them they've got £x "credit". If it's a birthday the recipient will probably get money from other people too that they want to spend.

NBLondon

Back in ye olden days - gift cards for the likes of WH Smith or Woolworths were a good thing as presents for kids as they couldn't be spent down the local sweetshop (OK - Woolies pick.n.mix) and there was some control for the receiving parent to insist it was spent on a vaguely improving book. Nowadays - any kid would rather have cash.

Vouchers are sometimes a good deal for companies to buy them before tax as an incentive or employee of the month rewards. For an individual - I suppose for the sort of person who never handles cash, it makes sense to buy one on a card and hand over a card. That's the sort of person who may not even notice the surcharge...

System

This is a shopping centre card and not a store card. The difference being that the shopping centre need to cover the costs of administering the payment to individual shops where the card was used, unlike a store card where it can just be treated as another payment

Dave_C_2

kermitfrog wrote: »

No, the idiots who buy them need their heads looking at. The senior manager who came up with the ploy should be rewarded.

Thinking about it, he should be sacked as it's a disincentive for folks to go shopping in a Westfield centre.

A better approach would be for a £21 gift card for £20.
Need some safeguards in place (off the top of my head)

• Only one card issued per person per day *
• Only one card can be used per purchase.
• Can only be used for part payment - no change whatsoever
• Card cannot be used on the day of purchase.

This will encourage people to return to the Westfield Centre

* This is the hard one to enforce. Maybe can only be paid for by a debit or credit card to provide traceability. Or proof of identity.

Dave

gregg1

!!!!!! wrote: »

This is a shopping centre card and not a store card. The difference being that the shopping centre need to cover the costs of administering the payment to individual shops where the card was used, unlike a store card where it can just be treated as another payment

As i said, they get rental from the shops which should cover the costs of admin.