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If you haven't seen a gift card for sale on an online auction then you are missing out. It's really amazing what people will pay to save a few dollars. For example it's not uncommon to see a $50 gift card sell for $45+ and then $1 shipping. You might look at it as "it's not worth bidding if I am going to only save $4" however a penny pincher might look at it as "wow I can buy this gift card online and save $4". Why would anyone go through the trouble to save that kind of money? Well let's think about it from a mathematicians point of view. If you take that $4 you saved on dinner one night and put it in the bank for 30 years, assuming 5% return on investment you would have $17.28 in the bank on the 30th year. Imagine if you saved $4 each month with interest over 30 years. Don't worry I will do the math for you, $265.75. If you look at it from a savings point of view this is how you might see it.

Now to answer the next question, why would anyone go to the trouble of listing an auction for a $50 gift card and sell it for less than $50. The seller will also have to pay auction fees and then probably fees to collect the money. It just doesn't seem worth it, or does it? I'm guessing that most gift cads online were obtained the following ways. An employee works at the restaurant and has received the gift card as a promotional prize or a reward for service. Since they probably eat there very often they would rather have the $45 rather than eat there another day. Another options is that many online services offer gift cards as rewards for completing tasks. Again the winner probably would rather have the $45 cash rather than spending $50 at the restaurant. A final option is sometimes restaurants offer discounts for purchasing gift cards in bulk. The seller could have purchased 100's of dollars in gift cards and got them for less than $45 making more of a profit on the gift card. I'm sure there are other possibilities but these are just a few for you to think about.

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