Popularity of Christmas Gift Cards Spurs Swap & Exchange Web Sites

The popularity of holiday gift cards has created a secondary market allowing consumers to buy, sell, and trade them. The Web sites act as brokers for gift-card transactions and report that many consumers have far more cards than they can use or cards from a store they don't intend to purchase anything from.

The websites' solutions are to turn the holiday gift cards into some cash or swap them for a card issued by another store. Industry analysts are reporting that gift cards were the most-popular purchase over the Christmas holiday season and that sales of retailer gift cards are expected to grow to $58 billion in 2007 from $48 billion this year.

EBay currently lists Christmas gift cards on its auction site. Target gift cards and Macy's gift cards were among the many offered. SwapAGift.com and Cardavenue.com allow customers to trade cards as well as buy and sell them. For example, Cardavenue customers want to trade their Circuit City, Best Buy, and Blockbuster gift cards. Likewise, SwapAGift users are looking to sell a Tiffany gift card or swap it for an Olive Garden card of equal value.