An Out-of-Card Experience for Amazon May 05, 2008 Amazon.com trades in plastic for ubiquity
By Anne Marie D. Lee
As an exclusively online retailer, Amazon.com has never been anchored to the same physical forms that store-based retailers are, and now that's true even of gift cards. With the goal of developing gift cards into more customizable and giftable options, Amazon.com is breaking out of the plastic mold. The result is almost limitless options of products that can be printed with a gift code.
"The gift card is a payment mechanism," says Marcell King, senior manager, sales at Amazon.com. "The benefit for us [versus other vendors] is that we use a code on our cards. Whether it's printed on a stored-value card, credit card, or an e-mail, we can put the code on just about anything, and it can be leveraged as a gift card on our site." The code that King refers to is a gift code that, when activated online by the recipient, applies the entire reward value to the recipient's Amazon.com account. Once a gift code is claimed by the recipient, the reward value is secured, and there is no need for the recipient to hold on to the card or e-mail originally presented to him or her.
King says Amazon gift codes can be printed on almost anything, such as pens or other promotional items, which, when combined with a gift code, become something of added value for the recipient. "There are so many different things we can do because of the ubiquity of the code," he says. "We're not limited to the physical form factor of the card, so we're working with clients to try and explore other form factors. Mobile technology is obviously a big one."
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