News reports suggest that Saks Fifth Avenue is planning on buying Neiman Marcus for $2.65 billion.
At the time of publishing this post the sale hasn’t been officially announced, but I thought it would be interesting to consider what this could mean from a gift card perspective.
For starters, Neiman Marcus gift cards have a higher resale rate than Saks Fifth Avenue gift cards. If they become interchangeable (i.e. Saks gift cards can be used at Neiman Marcus and vice versa), it’ll be interesting to see if the resale rates meet in the middle at ~87%, or if they settle at a rate slightly higher or lower than that.
One such factor will be how easily accessible Neiman Marcus gift cards become. I believe that many Kroger (and Kroger-affiliated) stores carry Saks gift cards but not Neiman Marcus. That absence of Neiman Marcus cards is part of the reason their resale rate is a little more resilient – there are simply fewer opportunities to buy their cards at a discount. If their cards become interchangeable and become available at Kroger stores, 4x fuel points sales would likely mean Saks/Neiman Marcus gift cards would have a lower resale rate.
This could also be noteworthy when it comes to the Amex Platinum benefit for Saks Fifth Avenue. As a quick recap, on consumer Amex Platinum cards (not the business version) you get a twice-yearly $50 Saks credit. This can be used to buy a $50 Saks Fifth Avenue gift card in-store, or a $150+ physical gift card online ($150 is the minimum denomination on physical cards and eGift cards don’t work as payment is processed by a third party).
If that benefit becomes a Saks/Neiman Marcus combo benefit, you should be able to buy a $50 gift card in-store at Neiman Marcus to trigger the credit. That could be useful for those with no Saks store nearby but who do have a nearby Neiman Marcus. As things stand, that would have to be an in-store purchase though as online purchases of both physical and digital gift cards are processed by a third party.
An alternative would be to buy $50 of merchandise online from Neiman Marcus. That could be more appealing than buying from Saks as Saks now has a minimum purchase of $300 to get free shipping, whereas Neiman Marcus still participates in ShopRunner. That gets you free two-day shipping and ShopRunner is a benefit you can get free on a number of different credit cards (including Amex Platinums).
Anyway, all this is speculation for now – we’ll see how it all pans out.