A reader has reached out to give a heads up that GiftCardWiki has changed the way that it displays market inventory on the site. This misrepresents current market inventory which can seriously affect how long resellers can expect to wait before their cards are likely to sell.
We’ll use Yankee Candle as an example. GiftCardWiki states that today’s inventory on the resale markets is as follows:
- CardCash – $1,266
- eGifter – $3,750
- Raise – $19,395
- Total – $24,411
The thing is, there’s actually more than $50,000 of Yankee Candle gift cards listed on these markets. The reason why more than half that amount isn’t showing is because GiftCardWiki is no longer displaying cards that have a 0% discount. For example, sorting the discount offered on Yankee Candle gift cards on GiftCardWiki shows the lowest discount as being 0.1%:
If you take a look at Yankee Candle gift card listings on Raise and sort them from lowest discount to highest, you’ll see that there are tons of cards listed with a 0% discount that aren’t included on GiftCardWiki. The reason why some people list cards on Raise with a 0% discount is that they’re waiting for resale rates to recover due to high market inventory.
The problem with GiftCardWiki’s change is that anyone relying on their data for market inventory will naturally assume there’s less inventory than in reality. This could lead gift card resellers to buy certain brands under the assumption that they’ll be able to resell them fairly quickly, while in reality it could take many months longer than expected, potentially affecting cashflow.
GiftCardWiki hasn’t necessarily made this change with untoward intentions, but it does mean there’s less transparency and less pertinent information for resellers which is never good. If you rely on GCW for information about the inventory of gift cards listed on the resale markets (and thus potential float time), just be aware that the true data might be drastically different.
[…] PSA: GiftCardWiki Displaying Misleading Stats, Not Showing All Market Inventory by Giftcard Galore. I think GCW probably did this as some sites are also listing ‘first hand’ gift cards with no discount and they don’t want this counting towards the total but unfortunately this means that people listing second hand gift cards with no discount are also being excluded. […]
Interesting post, but I would put the blame on Raise for allowing GCs to be listed at no discount. It markets itself as having discounted gift cards, so it doesn’t make sense to allow cards with no discount. If a seller wants to wait for the market to recover, then that seller can list with a 0.1% discount, even though that’s a bit silly, but at least it solves the problem identified here.
Raise has portal tracking as well as sales that make cards listed at 0% viable (sometimes more viable than .1% discount, depending on what the requirements are for the sale or portal. Additionally, some brands simply always sell at 0% because of the above.
Like Anton says, even if you’ve maxed out your lifetime earning through shopping portals, the 3-7% discounts can make it worth buying cards even if they have a 0% initial discount.
I’ve never actually used GCW myself as I’d heard occasional comments from people about it not working well for them.
There are other problems with Giftcardwiki, particularly with the sell information. They still list Cardkangaroo which is not buying gift cards and Giftcardzen which doesn’t exist anymore. Their rates are often wrong. They leave out Cardcash when Cardcash is buying.