Women prefer gift cards to cash

I have 3 daughters, now grown up women. Buying birthday gifts for them is a real headache. What should I get for them? A dress? It may not fit them or they may not like the fashion. Perfumes? They may not like the scent. A pair of shoes? Again, fashion will play a great role here. Get the wrong pair and it may lie in a forlorn corner, unused. Headache, headache, headache.

Receive an alert from Gift Card Mall^TM which offered a possible solution to this headache. Here is the possibility - give gift cards.

The alert also mentioned something - news circulating that a great many retailers are closing (probably due to the sub-prime crisis and the economic crisis following it?) and not accepting gift cards. Another headache? No, read on. The message from Blackhawk Network says the above is not true and there still is a great majority of retailers who are still accepting gift cards as they do not want to disappoint customers and want to retain loyal customers. It also claims that consumers, both givers and receivers, prefer to give and receive gift cards as the recipient gets to choose what he or she wants and thus the money is not wasted. In fact according to a survey commissioned by Blackhawk Network, 70% of respondents are of the opinion that it is useful to give gift cards as the recipient can choose what he or she wants and thus no gift are wasted. More than half of the respondents in the survey says they would prefer to give gift cards in preference to giving cash.

Now the part related to women. More women (62% as compared with 58% for the population in general) plan to buy gift cards as presents this coming holidays season.