Commerce and payments platform Marqeta today announced that it is the company providing the technology behind the Facebook Card, a gift card that can hold balances for a number of retailers or restaurants simultaneously.

Marqeta had agreed with Facebook not to disclose this until now. The announcement came as part of news about Marqeta’s latest round of funding: a $14 million Series B from Greylock IL, Granite Ventures, Commerce Ventures and a number of new angel and strategic investors.

The company’s +M Platform connects online and offline commerce through prepaid loyalty programs, similar to the Starbucks Card. It also allows prepaid amounts from multiple merchants, which is what Facebook is taking advantage of for its card. Facebook Card is a resusable gift card that can be loaded with balances for different businesses when a user’s friends buy them gifts through the social network.

When Facebook Card launched in January, Target, Jamba Juice, Olive Garden and Sephora were the only partners, making it not very compelling. It has since added Walgreens, Burger King, Outback Steakhouse and Staples — still quite limited and user awareness still seems to be very low. We haven’t seen Facebook make any efforts to advertise this offering, though it has been promoting Gifts overall across the platform.

In general, Gifts have been slow to take off, in part because of confusion about what Gifts are. Some users, remembering Facebook’s virtual gift shop from a few years ago, don’t realize the new Gifts are actual physical and digital goods. Others are skeptical because they think Gifts are a third-party app, not something from Facebook. Still others might not be using the product because they feel Facebook is not personal enough to send friends and loved ones presents through, or they’re concerned about providing their credit card information to the social network.

Until Facebook can better address users’ concerns and convey the benefits of Gifts — users don’t need to know a friend’s address, they can share the Gift on a friend’s wall or keep it private, payment information is secure — the product is unlikely to come into widespread use. If it can position it as a convenient but intimate way to show someone they care, then Gifts and Facebook Card might start to fulfill their potential as new stream of revenue for the company and shape commerce like Marqeta and Facebook seem to intend.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

If you’re sitting on a bunch of bitcoins that are burning a hole in your digital wallet, you now have another way to spend them. Today, mobile gift card company Gyft has partnered with BitPay to start accepting bitcoins within its app.

This is a big partnership for both, as BitPay’s CEO, Tony Gallippi, says that the company currently processes $5 million per month in bitcoin transactions for its merchants. Gyft allows you to purchase gift cards at more than 50,000 retail locations in the U.S., including Brookstone, Lowe’s, GAP, Sephora, Gamestop, American Eagle, Nike, Marriott, Burger King and Fandango. So, technically, you’ll now be able to use bitcoin to pay for a Whopper. That’s progress, right?

The new bitcoin payment option is only available on the Android version of Gyft, but is as easy as choosing your choice of payment once you’ve chosen the gift card that you want to buy. Simply pick bitcoin and then use your wallet to pay for it.

This means more purchase activity within Gyft, as well as setting itself up for the future, in case bitcoin were to go mainstream: “Gyft is proud to be a pioneer in the bitcoin universe and we are excited about the possibilities for further innovation on our platform,” said Gyft CEO Vinny Lingham.

I spoke with Gallippi about BitPay’s role in the future of bitcoin, and how long it might take consumers to jump on the train:

TC: Are these the types of deals that you’re focused on now to make bitcoin mainstream? Will there be more like the Gyft announcement coming?

Gallippi: We are looking for ways to increase business acceptance of bitcoin. Most retail point-of-sale systems are legacy, and so integrating bitcoin would take some effort. However, if we can easily convert bitcoin into a tender that business can already accept, that will help drive bitcoin adoption more quickly.

TC: How long do you suspect it will take until the average consumer gets educated on bitcoin and uses it?

Gallippi: Bitcoin is hard to use today, and that’s a good thing. There are still bugs and it is too risky for the average consumer. The infrastructure of bitcoin cannot handle hundreds of millions of users at this time, so a gradual adoption is better.

TC: What are some of the hurdles that stand in the way of mainstream bitcoin usage?

Gallippi: It still is difficult to purchase bitcoins. This would be easier if banks were more accommodating to let people choose what do to with their own money. Bitcoin is voluntary; you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.

TC: Since this lets you convert into a gift card, how long do you think it will take to be able to make direct purchases using bitcoin?

Gallippi: E-commerce will adopt new direct bitcoin payments faster than retail, since e-commerce already has payment gateways in place for software-only payments.

TC: How do you feel about the recent stories of DDOS attacks that have affected bitcoin and how that’s perhaps scared some people away from the currency?

Gallippi: Bitcoin companies suffer from DDOS like all banks do. However consumers actually are inconvenienced less with a bitcoin wallet DDOS. With your online banking, if your bank is down, you cannot access your money. However with bitcoin, if you are in control of your private keys, if the wallet you use is down, you can upload your backup into a different wallet that is up, and have immediate access to your funds. That is possible with bitcoin, but not possible with any other type of traditional bank.

———–

The fact that it’s Android-only shows that we’re still a long way off for bitcoin in the mainstream. It’s going to take a lot for Apple to one day accept any type of wallet integration into its own apps.

For bitcoin, this is a big step forward, as real goods and services can now be purchased using them, even if it’s relying on a gift card as the middle man.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

My calendar is mostly filled with Facebook birthdays, these days, and at best those notifications will prompt me to post on someone’s wall once a year. Gftr, a project from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013′s Hackathon, wants to use those birthdays to power more meaningful gift-giving, thanks to crowdsourcing and the one day every year when people have the most goodwill directed towards them.

Other companies have created crowdsourced gifting platforms in the past, but Gftr wants to make it possible to not just split a hugely expensive thing equally between a group of friends, but also to pull in contributions of varying amounts from your entire social graph. Currently, Gftr works with Facebook, meaning that maybe your friend from grade school who you haven’t seen in 15 years throws in $2, but your significant other offers up $300, all with the goal of getting you a brand new DSLR, for instance.

The team behind Gftr includes Anthony Guidarelli, Vishal Gupta, Andrew Emerson, Aaron Lu, Cyrus Rahman, and Pat McCreary, and is composed of designers and hackers from Avenue B Labs, a New York-based group of entrepreneurs. They say they plan to actually build Gftr into a full product, and will work on extending it across other social media platforms, including Twitter.

There’s also a charitable angle, as Gftr says they could build in a function where any contributions to a group gift above the total required value would go towards a charity of the gift-giver or gift-receiver’s choosing. This could help people with huge social media followings not only get gifts they actually need, but also use their considerable influence to do some good at the same time.

Getting gifts is nice, but the power for any one person to get somebody something they genuinely need and will enjoy is greatly diminished compared to a group pooling their resources. No other startup in this space has really become a runaway success yet, so it isn’t clear that people are all that interested in coming together to get someone something awesome, but the way Gftr tries to make the investment required negligible could help it succeed where others have failed.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Palo Alto-based Wanderable, a 500 Startups-backed company designed to help couples create wedding registries filled with “honeymoon experiences” instead of just gifts, is now available on the iPhone. With the new app, a couple can create their registry on the go, view and track the gifts they receive, and then snap photos to accompany thank you notes which are sent out directly from the app itself.

The startup was co-founded by Jenny Chen and Marcela Miyazawa, former Stanford computer science classmates, as well as friends. Miyazawa says she was inspired to create the service after getting married herself, and being stumped as to what to add to her registry. “I had already been living with my boyfriend then – my husband now – for several years. I couldn’t think of anything to register for – I don’t need plates, I don’t need cutting boards, etc.” she adds.

Miyazawa ended up using HoneyFund to build her registry online, but felt the experience was less than ideal. Others in this busy space include sites like TheHoneymoon, The Big Day, HoneyLuna, Honeymoon Wishes, Traveler’s Joy, RegistryLove, and NewlyWish, for example.

“It’s such a great concept, but it’s so poorly done on other websites,” Miyazawa explains. “Other sites either take such a big percentage of your funds – from 8 to 10 percent – or, if they’re free, they have Google Ads…and it felt terrible to have ads on the registry,” she adds.

Instead, Wanderable takes only 5 percent of transactions on its site, split between the givers and the couple. The site finds other ways to generate revenue – such as through its $9.99 gift boxes that allow guests to package their “experience gift” in a box covered in pretty, handmade wrapping paper. The box contains a note from the wedding guest, as well as details about the experience purchased – like cocktails on the beach, excursions, dinners out, and more.

The company also offers concierge services, and is now working with resorts on private label registries, too. This would allow a hotel to host its own branded registry. Wanderable has partnered with BedandBreakfast.com, and Miyazawa notes that a large, undisclosed resort in Hawaii is currently piloting the private label option, too.

In terms of the newly launched mobile app specifically, Wanderable for iPhone offers a scaled down version of the registry, allowing couples to add and edit items from their handheld. It’s not limited to “experience” gifts either – but could be used to register for anything the couple wanted, including big-ticket items which guests could choose to go in on as a group.

However, the standout feature of the app is the “thank you” note option. Using the iPhone’s camera, the couple can take a picture of their gift or of themselves enjoying the activity the guest had helped fund. That picture is then turned into a personalized thank you card which is mailed out (that is, snail mailed!) to the gift giver. Currently, Wanderable is using the Sincerely API for this, but hopes to bring this feature in-house in the future.

Since its debut last January, the company has attracted “thousands” of users to its service, but Miyazawa declined to provide details on exact numbers, transactions, or growth.

Wanderable currently has a small (quarter of a million) seed round, funded by 500 Startups, as well as angel investors including Elliot Loh, Amos Elliston, and others.

The new iPhone application is available for download here in the Apple App Store.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Gyft, the TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 finalist working to bring the plastic gift card industry to mobile, is today announcing the general availability of its APIs, which allow developers to integrate Gyft into websites, apps, or other services. However, as Gyft co-founder and CEO Vinny Lingham explains, the primary focus is on mobile app developers – a group that’s interested in offering gift cards as rewards within their mobile games.

“A lot of developers out there have points, rewards, and unredeemed credits, and they want to offer a way for their users to cash out those points or credits,” explains Lingham. He suggests that Gyft is a better alternative for these developers than using bill-pay systems that charge fees for transactions.

“We’re focused on mobile,” he adds. “There are a lot of mobile games out there. It’s a huge market. And the people who already have mobile phones, playing mobile games, are going to be more open to using mobile gift cards,” Lingham notes.

Though the in-app API integrations could help drive new customers to Gyft’s own apps on iOS and Android, customers redeeming their cards won’t have to install the Gyft app on their phone. If they choose, they can just visit Gyft on the web, login and print out their gift card from the site.

The first partner to use the Gyft APIs is Yappem, a social network for sharing customer experiences with brands and businesses. Lingham says that about 10 more integrations should go live by the end of April, and Gyft expects there to be “hundreds” more over the next few months.

This is the first time Gyft has launched a feature for developers. Until now, the startup had been working on its consumer-facing mobile gift card “wallet” of sorts, which allows users to store digital versions of their plastic gift cards, buy gift cards, or share cards with friends for special occasions, like birthdays, for example.

Gyft declined to provide details as to active users or downloads, but says it has “hundreds of thousands” of users on its service today, and has grown the stored value of its on-file gift cards to $5 million since launch six months ago. The company has also begun targeting users with free gift cards offering a small amount (e.g. $5 at Gap) to encourage users to spend with Gyft’s retailer partners. In one case, 20 percent of those who opened the card went in-store to make a purchase with the brick-and-mortar retailer. And the average spend was 4 to 5 times higher than the card’s value, Lingham says.

This is early data, of course, but as the company grows, it will work with retailers to connect with their gift card-carrying customer base, offering those potential shoppers incentives to come into the store, online or off, and make a purchase. But for now, the company is focused on product improvements and driving consumer adoption of the app – something spreading its service through the mobile gaming ecosystem could help to accomplish.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Last March, Zynga announced its ambitions to create a web and mobile platform for social games. Zynga.com is a destination for both the company’s own games as well as for third-party developers who want to leverage Zynga’s social feed and users. In September, Zynga debuting its first third-party games. And today, Zynga is rolling out a number of changes to Zynga.com, namely how you sign-in.

The platform itself allows developers to post to the stream of social gaming activity at Zynga.com, and also to include social features like chat and real-time multiplayer. One of the major changes with this update is how players sign in. Previously, you signed in via your Facebook login, and your experience was built around all your previous Zynga gaming interactions on the social network (based on your permissions). With the new sign-in, you actually sign in with a Zynga account that is created and Facebook Connect is optional.

You can still integrate all of your Facebook game boards, progress and friends, but this is no longer required. Reading between the lines, it appears that Zynga wants to continue down the road of becoming less reliant on Facebook for social interactions and more. This isn’t particularly surprising considering Zynga and Facebook’s new terms that were released late last year. As part of the agreement at the time, the Zynga.com platform was no longer obligated to use Facebook ad units and Facebook credits. In exchange, Zynga’s right to cross-promote its non-Facebook games using Facebook data and email addresses are limited by the standard terms.

Since launching, Zynga has noticed a number of things about how people are playing games on the platform, namely that people want to be challenged and they want the ability to progress faster.

For example, on the social stream, you can see who else is playing a current game (and your friends), and by interacting in the stream, you can share gifts to the community. So if you are in Farmville, and you needed a specific tool. You could share this to your social stream, and any friends could click on this to send you the gift as a reward for interacting with the stream. Zynga does keep track of how many people you have helped.

It’s not only a way to showcase the millions of players that playing with you, but it’s also a way to actually share gifts and benefit not only yourself within a game, but others. 70 percent of players on Zynga.com are interacting with the social stream, and some are clicking more than 100 times a day.

Zynga also found that interweaving ads within the stream was better for players in terms of monetization than a static ad across the bottom of the page. The company has also been experimenting with actions like watching a video ad to get through a segment of a game.

Right now, Zynga is shipping more third-party games on Zynga.com than in-house. There have been more documentation, SDKs and tools (even a help forum) added to aid developers in building games around the platform.

It’s no secret that Zynga is rethinking its approach to gaming at the moment. The company has shut down a number of once popular titles, and is releasing fewer games and spacing their releases further apart. Zynga’s Q4 saw layoffs and a continuing series of executive and mid-level departures. It’s clear this is a transition point for the gaming company, but the Zynga.com network is one of the areas that the gaming giant is doubling down. The goal is to figure out what’s sticky for both the player and the developers, and it’s a challenge to find a balance on both fronts.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

In a move that somewhat deviates from the Samwer brothers’ usual playbook, Rocket Internet’s DropGifts, the social gifting platform that lets users send each other gift cards and claim product samples offered by brands, is launching a dedicated B2B play starting with the U.S. market first rather than its home turf of Europe or via a land grab in developing markets. That said, we shouldn’t read too much into what is clearly a baby step no matter how Rocket is spinning the announcement.

DropGift’s new B2B offering builds on its original B2C play (which was already available in the U.S.) and piggybacks Facebook to enable brands to target their “fans” with sampling and gifting campaigns and, in turn, as with other social marketing platforms, turn those fans into so-called brand ambassadors. Campaigns appear on the brand’s own Facebook page via a specific application tab, with their own branding not DropGift’s, essentially replicating a white-label version.

Companies using the platform can set up a campaign to enable their existing “fans” to send samples to their friends and claim samples for themselves directly via the brand’s Facebook page.

Alternatively, they can orchestrate a social gifting campaign that encourages consumers to send gifts to one another in a highly public and viral way in order to become part of the “conversation” — again as a wider engagement marketing play.

The result, claims DropGifts, is that the platform generates 35 times more impressions per-sample offered than traditional campaigns, which of course they would say.

While the U.S. push is clearly new for DropGifts, the B2B element may even qualify as a pivot, even though its B2C play already relies on working with brands.

“DropGifts was initially a consumer facing platform offering free gift cards from many different retailers in one spot,” co-founder and CMO Marie Chevrier tells TechCrunch. “This worked well but it didn’t allow brands to take full advantage of their existing social media followings. Our B2B solution allows brands to integrate a fully-branded solution in their very own social media channels.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

A couple years ago, I wrote a post called Google, Rome, and Empire. The gist of the article, of which I was very proud at the time, was that Google’s grand plan mirrored the structure of Roman roads in their build-out period, and that Google would unify its dozens of small properties with its five or six big ones by means of a single meta-service.

I envisioned this rich tapestry of services, obscure to monolithic, hooking in through engines and tools to a vastness of data and users, and, at the other end of the telescope, a single point of entry through which one would have instant access to everything from maps to obscure scientific results to the current price of tea. A bit like the real (or rather, idealized) empire, really: An assemblage of hamlets and metropoli, farms and academies, every citizen knowing that their via vicinale led to a via rustica, which led to a via publica, which led to Rome.

This constellation of services, this web of empowerment, resources, and variety. This bright future.

I’m feeling let down.

I’d like to think that I was at least not wrong the whole time. I think my optimism was warranted, just as I think their ambition was real. In a way, that ambition is intact. But it has been perverted. Google was like the Library of Babel: As near as infinite as the Internet age was likely to get. This mind-blowing edifice, bricks of information, mortared together with context, and gilded with accessibility. And they’re building it all so you’ll go to the gift shop.

I suppose I’m criticizing them for deciding to become a business rather than a public service. That was their choice to make, of course, but I think it’s safe to say their choice was a poor one. The Google of the early 2000s, globe-spanning and yet delighting in esoterica, was on its way to becoming a historic framework, Standard Oil crossed with Bell Labs. Not only that, it was crazy, starry-eyed: It was an asylum by and for the lunatics, a padded room big enough to hold the world.

What was it about being the connective tissue of the net that became so distasteful to Google? What was it that made them shutter project after project, things that could have lived out their natural lives for years on minimal resources, supported by a thankful and loving community in happy allegiance to the Google Empire?

Google+ was, as I saw it, a huge misstep, albeit a high-quality one. But other products, other “sunsets” (each less scenic than the last) hinted at a company growing not just sloppy, but callous. More wood behind fewer arrows, when the whole point of Google was that its quiver runneth over. Now, with the senseless shutdown of Reader (I won’t bore you with my own analysis; there’s plenty already (but take this)), I’m faced with how deliberate and tawdry the whole thing has become. God damn it, Google.

It’s not that we can’t move on from Reader — maybe its demise will even help with the rebirth of RSS, or whatever comes next, and make us really look at how ideas move around the Internet. And it’s not that I hate Google+, although I sure as hell don’t have to like it, either.

It’s like seeing your favorite fighter (I was going to say Ali, but Google doesn’t deserve him, even in simile) throw a match for the money. He’s no worse a fighter for it, but could you ever cheer for him again?

How can I be excited for Google Glass now? How can I be pumped for I/O or 3D Google Earth or a partnership with the Library of Congress, or anything they come up with? They’ve poisoned the well in the worst way; they made it clear that Google is worse than mercenary — it’s banal.

I can still be happy for what they’ve given us, and that’s not a little. They led the data-voracious of the world, spurred sluggish markets into action, and truly revolutionized (I don’t use the word lightly) the way we navigate data by changing what we think of as data (namely, everything). I can still follow the good works of the Maps and Books teams with approval or marvel a bit at the technical accomplishment of Glass, or thank them for their advocacy in Washington, though now it is without positive sentiment, like looking at the drawings some other person’s kids did at school.

Google’s greatest legacy may be in the lesson that they have given the next generation of companies and visionaries. Google said “Don’t be Evil,” and they meant it, but they found what others have found: it’s easier said than done, not because of temptation, but because nobody is quite sure what evil is. Luckily, those that are to come may be guided by a simpler principle:

Don’t be Google.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

A new gifting startup called Aggregift is launching an entirely new way to purchase goods on Amazon. The company, which has been quietly running its beta tests with a few thousand users over the past several months, allows users to initiate crowdfunding campaigns for gifts, which involve posting the call for contributions to the recipient’s Facebook Timeline.

The service is designed to be dead simple to use, too. The campaign’s originator just drops an Amazon product link in Aggregift to get started. And if they don’t know what to get their friend, they can browse through the recommended gifts on the site or work with one of Aggregift’s “gift concierges” via live chat.

Once the gift has been selected, the campaign gets its own page on Aggregift.com with a unique URL that can also be shared via email, Twitter or Facebook, for example. Though the request for contributions doesn’t have to be posted on the friend’s Facebook Timeline, that of course gives the campaign higher visibility among those who might actually be close enough to the recipient to want to participate.

The amount of each individual’s contribution is never revealed to the gift recipient, though givers are awarded badges like “Top Contributor” or other achievements – like being the one to finish the gift. Upon completion, the recipient can claim their gift, or in the case of misguided intentions, they can choose to get an Amazon.com gift card instead.

Aggregift was “officially” co-founded by Greg Schvey with former college classmate Austin Lin back in December 2011, but they didn’t begin working on it full-time until late summer 2012. Neither founders’ background is in gifting or e-commerce – Schvey came from Citigroup and Lin worked on Windows Phone – but they had teamed up together several times over their university years on campus-wide projects.

“People today are more connected than they have ever been. There’s all this communication happening, but we realized that there’s a lack of ways for people to celebrate together,” Schvey explains of why this product made sense to them.

“The gifting space has become a bit crowded,” he admits, “but what we’ve seen is that there’s still a huge gap in the products that are out there and the way people interact with each other.”

He says that Amazon is the first company that Aggregift is working with, but the plan is to expand the service to other retailers in the future. Currently, the business model is that Aggregift charges a 4 percent fee, but that could change later on, as the company gets more retailers involved. Competitors today include gifting apps like Wrapp and Boomerang, where retailers offer free gifts in small denominations (e.g., $5 to spend at Fab.com), in order to jump-start the gifting process. Schvey says that Aggregift won’t work exactly the same way, but declined to go into detail as to future plans.

The service also competes with crowdfunding tools like Crowdtilt, which TechCrunch staff (really awesome people, by the way) have used in the past. However, while Crowdtilt, Kickstarter, Indiegogo and the like focus on raising money for a project or cause, Aggregift takes the next step into actually making a gifting transaction.

Schvey says that during its early tests, the re-conversion rates were very good – as many as 40 percent of users returned to use Aggregift again. Gifts usually saw six to eight contributors who would donate $11 to $15 each. In the future, the company plans on making its gift recommendations better, including the ability to import wish lists from Amazon, which seems like a necessary next step.

Aggregift has $300,000 in angel backing from undisclosed investors and is currently a team of six based in New York.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The idea for Jifiti came about because Shaul Weisband — one of the creators of the app and company behind it — wanted to “teleport” gifts to friends. While teleportation is still not really possible, the team at Jifiti, have done the next best thing and are aiming to incorporate this into a new way of shopping. And I think retailers are going to like it.

The concept behind Jifiti is quite simple; go shopping in a participating brick and mortar store and when you see an item you would like to purchase for someone, you scan that item’s standard retail barcode with your smartphone. Next, you pick a friend you would like to send the item to and a gift code is created and emailed to that friend so  they can download the app, redeem the code and pick up that same item at a participating store near them.

For example, I want to buy my friend John Biggs a hat. But I live in Columbus OH and he lives in Brooklyn. I go shopping at a Lids store in Columbus and, I see a hat that he would like. So I scan that item’s standard barcode with the Jifiti app. I select John’s email and he gets sent a redemption code. He can then download the app, go to the nearest Lids store in Brooklyn and pick up the hat I just bought for him out of the other store’s inventory.

This is an interesting way to shop for others. Browsing in a real store; the instant gratification of a physical purchasing experience and yet the item can be redeemed as soon as the redeemer wants to pick it up.

Pretty nifty…um, I mean pretty Jifiti. The app has also already caught the attention of the mobile startup accelerator here at the SXSW 2013 Interactive conference. (I love traveling across the country only to run into a startup from my own hometown of Columbus OH.) Jifiti also has a fairly slick website design too courtesy of an agency called Longstride that also calls Columbus home.

I should add that Jifiti is not constrained to only brick and mortar retails stores. You can still search for select items displayed within the app and send the redemption code that way without having to visit a physical store yourself. It’s just not a complete list of items.

Additionally, the app also has wishlist functionality. So you can broadcast the gifts you want people to buy for you as well. They are even incorporating the ability to donate gifts to charitable organizations too. So really, the team at Jifiti are aiming for a fairly comprehensive retail shopping solution. It’s pretty interesting.

Implications
So why are retailers going to like this? Well, obviously there is a “drive-to-store” component to the scenario. You can browse physical store items and buy them instantly for others — capture that feeling of instant gratification. However, chances are that if you are browsing in a physical store, you might pick up something for yourself. Retailers will be fond of that.

Another thing is that the mechanics behind the system is actually based on gift cards. When you scan an item and send that item to a person, you are essentially buying a custom gift card and sending that gift card to that person, its just that no plastic card is ever involved. It is all worked into the app. Jifiti, buys these cards in bulk at discount and is essentially reselling them, which is how they monetize. In this way, retailers will see it as an instant purchase on their books. Pretty smart.

Also, Jifiti have put together this system without altering typical store operational procedures. Retailers don’t really have to alter Point Of Sale systems or anything like that. Basically, they just have to be able to process the gift card codes. This lowers the barrier of entry for retailers to get involved.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch