Churning News: Giftcards.com Branches Off to Saveya.com

Giftcards.com is a gift card reseller and they’ll be opening another branch to buy and sell gift cards under a new name: SaveYa.com. (See The Complete Guide to Selling your Unwanted Gift Cards.)

Background

I was first tipped off to this new Saveya option by my friend Chasing The Points, and more recently SaveYa started showing up in the giftcardgranny sellers options. What was odd was that I didn’t see any cards that they dealt with, it was always blank.

I just headed over to saveya.com and I saw that they actually are already up and running, but they only accept two gift cards rights now: Walmart and Macy’s. I then headed over to giftcardgranny and I saw that indeed those two are showing in the giftcardgranny listings.

It just so happened to be perfect timing for me since I just bought some discounted Macy’s gift cards, so I decided to try out selling one $50 Macy’s gift card; I like starting small. I entered the gift code in without a problem, but then they prompted me to enter my credit card number and the system wasn’t processing it properly. I called up and spoke to a very helpful rep there.

What We Know

Here’s what I learned:

• The system was really in beta, but they just took it off beta and it still has some glitches. She was actually asking me what I saw, etc., so that they could fix it all and get it up and running properly.
• From the gist of the conversation, it sounded to me that within a few weeks they should have all merchants up and running.
• She told me that Giftcards.com is NOT closing down. Both marketplaces will continue. (Hence my title to this post: Giftcards.com Branches Off to Saveya.com.) My personal guess is that this is all in the short term; eventually Giftcards.com will only deal with new gift cards and Saveya will be doing the discounted gift cards buying and selling.
• Saveya will also allow electronic submission for gift cards, and they’ll in fact encourage it. Payout will be the same for electronic and physical submissions.
• In the FAQ it mentions a significantly higher limit than Giftcards.com has. Saveya mentions a limit of $500 per month and $1500 per rolling 3 months. That makes it more of a real option, even without becoming a bulk seller. Giftcards.com limits non-bulk sellers to $750 per rolling 3 months.
• When (unsuccessfully) trying to sell my Macy’s gift card to Saveya, the system seemed to indicate that the limit was $300. But I confirmed with the rep that the true amount is $500 and that this just needs to be fixed.
• What’s also great, is that we should be able to do $1500 in sales to Saveya, besides for the $750 that we’re doing to Giftcards.com.
• Currently, you’ll notice on giftcardgranny that the payout on both Walmart and Macy’s is .5% less on SaveYa than it is on Giftcards.com. I tried pressing her if it will continue that way, and she told me, “you’ll have to wait and see every day”. My guess is that this is intentional and the SaveYa rates will be consistently less (possibly consistently .5% less) than giftcards.com. This isn’t all that bad since giftcards.com often pays out .5% – 1% more than the competition, so by going slightly less SaveYa could still stay competitive as far as rates go.
• Of course, if Giftcards.com is still around it would make sense to go that route, since they’re slightly better rates, but if Giftcards.com moves everything into Saveya then we’d be left with the Saveya rates.
• Another interesting thing about Saveya is that they’re advertising an in-store option of selling gift cards. I don’t know exactly how it will work, but apparently they’ll have locations where you can give your gift cards in physically.
• On the Bulk Sellers section it says that Saveya will have a possibility of higher rates for bulk sellers, depending on volume of sales.
• I tried opening my Saveya account with my regular email and it didn’t work. I then used my backup email and it worked. I’d guess this is because of an over-lap between giftcards.com and Saveya; since my email is in the giftcards.com system they couldn’t have it with saveya.

My Thoughts

On a personal level, I’m super excited about Saveya. You see, I’ve been actively trying to find a sales option which will allow me to send gift codes electronically. Giftcards.com is just such an option, but I haven’t had much success with them – you can read my experiences here. The next step I was thinking of pursuing was to try becoming a bulk seller with GiftCardZen who allows electronic submission for bulk sellers. Though I don’t really do the requisite $5000 in monthly sales, I was hoping to convince them somehow to allow me to be a bulk seller.

But now I made some headway toward becoming a bulk seller with Saveya. The rep started processing my info and it sounded like I may be able to become a bulk seller, though it’s not a done deal yet. Since they’re new, they probably don’t have many bulk sellers yet and it may be easier than it was with Giftcards.com. To be fair, I never pursued the Giftcards.com option that strongly, so it’s possible I could have worked with them too, if I would have called in and spoke to them.

When the Saveya agent asked me where I get my gift cards from, I told her (honestly) that I get them from credit card points and from various deals I have on my credit cards. I meant Amex Offers, but I didn’t actually say that. She said, “Oh, I also get gift cards from deals I have on my credit card”. I’m thinking, “Hey, sounds like I have a good partner here”.

I’m going to try becoming a bulk seller with Saveya and I’ll see how it goes. I won’t sell them big amounts until I get comfortable with the system, but hopefully it will work out well.