Best and Worst Gift Cards to Buy This Year, Adjusted for Discounts and Popularity
Gift cards may be the fruitcake of the 21st century, but their lack of originality makes up for in utility. Of course, this depends on the gift card. LendEDU rated 101 cards to determine the best and worst for 2016 based on discounts, popularity, and several other factors.
The site used five different metrics to determine its ranking:
- Popularity of Gift Cards Based on Search Terms
- Average purchase discount for buyers
- Average resale value for sellers
- Happiness to receive a gift card (note: we did a survey)
- Fare
Of course, the old correlation / causation issue has to do with some of these metrics (for example, just because a gift card is popular in searches doesn’t necessarily mean people want it ). However, they also split each individual metric in the table below, so you can browse for example by discount. Target, GameStop and Chipotle were among the best on their list, while Hallmark, Zara, Aldo and Brookstone were among the worst. Take a look at the graph below and then follow the link to see the full interactive version.