Facebook ‘Likes’ Gift Cards for New Retail Effort

Facebook is touting the availability of new reusable offline gift cards.

Simply called “Facebook Card,” the offering allows you to store monetary balances from a wide variety of retailers on one single card.

The social networking giant says individuals can purchase the gift cards for friends directly on the Facebook website and select from among top brands like Target, Jamba Juice, Olive Garden, and Sephora.

Gift card recipients will then get their cards in the mail ready for use at their favorite participating store.

“Your friend will be notified instantly about your gift, and will receive a Facebook Card in the mail a few days later,” Facebook announced this week. “As soon as it arrives, your friend can use the card at the retailer you’ve chosen for the amount you’ve gifted.”

As you might expect, gift card balances can be reviewed at any time on either Facebook’s desktop or mobile site. Best of all, when you received multiple gift cards, the balances all accumulate and transfer to one card. In other words, one card may hold $100 for Target, $20 for Jamba Juice, etc.

So does Facebook have the potential for a real hit with these new branded gift cards?

“This new gift card service is more about stored value,” explains Tomio Geron of Forbes, “which is seemingly low-hanging fruit for Facebook compared to the work of actually shipping physical products. This also gives Facebook another connection to large brands, which is a plus as the company seeks to bring in more large brands to Facebook advertising.”

Would you like to receive or possibly give a Facebook gift card? Please weigh in with a thought or comment on your impression of the new gift card service.

Source: mobilemarketingwatch (http://goo.gl/EF436)