Great site to buy and sell Gift Cards

I know that Jay has mentioned how he buys $250 gift cards off eBay for like $217. Today, I wanted to show you a site that offers a similar service, but it’s dedicated to gift cards and actually cheaper.

Before you blow off the idea, I am sure many of you have occasionally received a gift card to a store that you hated. Well, instead of using it to buy something that adds to your clutter, why not get the cash instead? CardAvenue essentially allows you to list a gift card that you don’t want. Other members of the site then bid on your card and obviously the person with the highest bid, is the winner.

The site works in reverse too. If you are looking for a gift card, start you search there. The image on the right shows a small sample of what was recently listed.

Like eBay, there are fees to contend with. Buyers are not charged anything, however, the people selling the cards are charged 3.95% of the selling price + $.50 for the listing. This policy is similar to eBay’s although not as confusing. For comparison purposes, eBay’s fees are:

“5.25% of the initial $25.00 ($1.31), plus 3.00% of the remaining closing value balance ($25.01 to $1,000.00)”

So, let’s see who gives the better value because I am certain that eBay provides more eyeballs. Let’s say that I am selling a $250 gift card and that it sells for $200. Here are my fees from each of the auction sites:

eBay: [5.25% of the first $25.00 =] $1.31 + [3.00% of the remaining $175.00 =] $5.25 + [listing fee=] $3.60 = $10.61

CardAvenue: [3.95% of the selling price =] $7.90 + [listing fee=] $0.50 = $8.40

According to my math, CardAvenue is clearly cheaper. In my opinion it’s also worth a shot because although you may receive less hits on your auction, I contend that you will get a better targeted audience since the only reason people come to CardAvenue is to buy Gift Cards as opposed to the million other items on eBay.

– Mark

Site introduced to me by Free the Drones.