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Amazon’s Gift Card Future: Personal, But Not Too Personal

Written by Evan Schuman
November 20th, 2008
Amazon.com, which arguably has one of the most extensive retail CRM databases and purchase recommendation engines, envisions a Catch-22 future for gift cards. The key is making them more personalized, more customized. And yet, anything that hints of privacy violations is off-limits. It's like a starving man being given the keys to a well-stocked food locker as long as he agrees not to eat anything.

Such is the plight of Michal Geller, Amazon's director of consumer gift cards. Down the road, Amazon is toying with other ways to truly customize cards. But avoiding privacy issues, Geller said, is non-negotiable. "Anything related to privacy is off the table," he said, forcing Amazon to focus on "some creative ways (that are) not creepy."

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Posted in CRM, E-Commerce, Payment Systems, Premium Content, RFID, Security/Fraud, Software
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One Comment | Read Amazon’s Gift Card Future: Personal, But Not Too Personal

  1. Rob Martell Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 8:12 pm

    If I buy a gift card for someone, it is so they can buy anything they want. Anything! Sure, I try to get one from a merchant who has enough variety that will meet the recipient’s needs.

    While I get the idea of an aftermarket for gift card swapping, I personally would have done the research before buying the card, now that it can be done on-line. Brick & mortar stores complain about people who come in to view items but then order on-line. This would be the same, wouldn’t it?

    I also think that the more targeted (no puns) things get, the more useless the ads become. I might have bought a Will Smith DVD, but that doesn’t mean I want to buy any more, or that I am NOT interested in anything else.

    This whole thing just gets creepier every day.

    Grins,

    Rob

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