HOW TO START A GIFT CARD BUSINESS IN NIGERIA
Gift card trading is a proven way to make loads of cash by trading in items (gift cards) that some retail store customers barely use. Of course, you should be interested in learning that every year, more than $1 billion worth of gift cards get wasted.
The reason for that isn’t far-fetched as it is common knowledge that rather than trade their gift cards for cash, some retail store customers let them waste away.
What then is a gift card?
A gift card is a kind of card commonly issued by retail stores to serve as a form of gift. Basically, the gift card issued by a particular store can stand in place of physical money for a customer to purchase item(s) from that store.
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Gift cards are generally admired for their monetary value and more often than not, retail stores issue these cards as a strategy for keeping customers.
Reading this post further, you’ll find out the comprehensive information that you should arm yourself with before getting started with gift card trading in Nigeria. Particularly, this post will show you how people make money through gift card trading. Other contents in this post include the tips for drawing customers for your gift card business and the 10 best platforms for gift card trading in Nigeria.
How Do People Make Money through Gift Card Trading?
Gift card trading is one of the trendy online businesses that you can start in Nigeria without incurring heavy startup expenses. That aside, it is a lucrative online business that you can cash in on. If you’re very much interested in getting started with a gift card trading business, you’ll definitely want to figure out how much profit you can reel from the business.
Generally, people make money from gift card trading by reselling their gift cards at prices higher than the cost prices of the cards. In simple words, they look for individuals willing to sell their gift cards at discounted/reduced prices. In this trading scenario, the original owner may want to sell their $150 worth of Amazon gift card for $100. After purchasing the gift card at a reduced price, the gift card trader may opt to resell it at a price of $125 which in turn earns him/her a $25 profit.
The key strategy to make money here is to simply know how/where to purchase gift cards at discounted rates. You should also familiarize yourself with the marketing strategy that works best for pitching your gift cards to prospective buyers. Without any doubt, it is risky to assume that you can plunge into gift card trading and expect to make money without first mastering the effective buying and selling strategy.
Gift card trading is fast becoming one of the most popular trade-specific online businesses you can do in Nigeria. If you’re able to master the right trading strategy, you’re very likely to become a six-figure income earner through this business in Nigeria.
Tips for Drawing Customers for Your Gift Card Business
Customers will be the ones to help sustain your gift card business. While it’s very important to know how to attract customers, it’s much more important to master the tactics for holding them.
Undisputedly, holding a sizeable customer base is one of the factors that can keep you in the gift card business. To draw customers to your gift card business, here are some of the tips you should follow:
- Create an online presence for your gift card business: An online presence here specifically refers to a business website that professionally describes what you do and how you can be reached. The website you’re creating for your gift card business should spell out all that you do (buying and selling gift cards), your buying and selling rates and the kinds of gift cards you trade in. Interestingly, a nicely designed and well-equipped website will not only project professionalism about your gift card business but also, it will give prospective customers the conviction that you can be trusted.
- Leverage social media for marketing your gift card business: If you fail to integrate social media into your marketing, it may be very hard for you to build a reasonable customer base for your gift card business. Endeavour to leverage WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook for your business marketing. Facebook ads can go a long way to attract many people to what you do. In fact, social media is your best bet for drawing the attention of many people to your gift card business.
- Keep friends and family aware of your gift card business: Friends and relatives are most probably the first people you should market your gift card business to. Let them know you can save them the need to look around for trusted buyers before they can sell their gift cards. Even if your friends do not have any gift cards to sell off, chances are that they will inform others who might be willing to sell gift cards.
- Incentivize your customers: Once you’ve begun drawing customers for your gift card business, do well to have a way of incentivizing them. You can do that by promising to reward your customers with cash or a certain amount of trade discount for every new customer they refer to you. Put simply, this can take the form of a referral system built into your business website. Needless to say, incentivizing your customers is a great way you can encourage others to advertise your gift card business on your behalf.
What Are the Negative Sides of Gift Card Trading?
Every business has its pros and cons and for the fact that gift card trading is an online business, there’s a strong likelihood that it would be vulnerable to scams.
In Nigeria, one of the negative sides of gift card trading is the presence of scammers parading themselves as gift card sellers. Scammers may pose as gift card sellers, cause intending buyers to give up their money but in the end, they fail to sell any gift cards to them.
Another noticeable con of gift card trading is that some sellers don’t seem to offer favourable rates. Since you’ll be buying gift cards in order to resell them, it isn’t advisable that you buy from sellers with unfavourable rates.
What Are the 10 Best Platforms to Trade Gift Cards in Nigeria?
LegitCards
Transparency is one of the hallmarks of credible business relations and in all sincerity, LegitCards lives up to its claim of being transparent. First of all, the platform doesn’t bombard you with underlying fees. LegitCards rather pays you a naira amount fully equivalent to the rate at which you’re selling your gift card.
LegitCards is one of the trusted platforms for gift card trading and prettily, some traders have regarded it as the platform with the best market rates in Nigeria. One of the perks of LegitCards is that traders using the platform no longer have to deal with any sign-up modalities while attempting to convert their gift cards into cash. It is damn convenient to trade your gift cards, Greendot funds and even Bitcoin on LegitCards.
Cardtonic
Cardtonic is one of the highly reputed platforms for Nigerians to trade in gift cards and cryptocurrencies. The platform meets all the expectations you may require of it in terms of trustworthiness and reliability. In fact, it is suitable for trading in the gift cards of various popular gift card issuers including Walmart, Amazon, Google Play, Steam Wallet, Nintendo and iTunes.
One of the perks about Cardtonic is its responsive and user-oriented mobile application. All users will find it convenient to use the mobile app on both iOS and Android platforms. Presumably, Cardtonic’s mobile app is the ideal alternative for gift card traders who just don’t fancy web-based trading platforms.
Cardtonic lays claim to having the fastest payout among the online platforms for gift card trading in Nigeria. Also in terms of security, Cardtonic users are guaranteed zero likelihood of gift card scams, thanks to the platform’s double encryption.
Have you got a couple of Amazon gift cards that you’re willing to sell?
Well, Reddit is clearly one of the go-to platforms for converting those gift cards into cash. With Reddit being an umbrella platform with myriads of subreddits, it isn’t any surprising that Reddit has a pretty number of subreddits for gift card exchange purposes.
You probably already know Reddit as a widely admired social media platform. Whether you’d believe it or not, Reddit offers beyond this social appeal as it is a pleasant and reliable avenue for gift card trading.
Selling on Reddit doesn’t cost you a dime and if you ever doubt the sincerity of a prospective gift card buyer, you’re free to contact subreddit moderators and have them scrutinize the buyer before you eventually trade with them.
Raise
Raise is an ideal place for trading in Amazon gift cards. The gift card trading platform offers as high as a 1% discount on Amazon gift cards.
Raise lets you trade in the gift cards of some other popular retail stores. The platform enables you to easily verify a gift card by simply supplying the serial number of the gift card.
Prestmit
Prestmit is a gift card trading website that combines excellent offerings such as attractive rates, extended gift card support and easy-to-use layout. To cap these excellent offerings, Prestmit boasts an always-responsive customer support service.
Prestmit is a Nigerian-designed gift card trading platform with over 20 different kinds of gift cards in Nigeria. The platform is well suited for users on different devices including PCs, tablets and mobile phones.
Hassle-free trading is guaranteed for anyone willing to sell or buy gift cards on Prestmit, hence making Prestmit one of the most reliable places for gift card trading in Nigeria. Prestmit also guarantees quick payment as you can get credited with cash for your sold gift cards within five minutes.
Gift Card Zen
This platform is now more commonly recognized for its partnership with Retailmenot. But beyond that, Gift Card Zen is another reliable site for trading in gift cards.
It is a verified place well known for its sale of Amazon gift cards. If you’re lucky enough to shoot your shot when gift cards are needed, you could end up selling your cards on this site.
Gift card Bin
This gift card trading site constitutes the reliable places for trading gift cards in Nigeria. However, some gift card traders in Nigeria may not find it as fascinating compared to some of the gift card trading websites mentioned earlier.
The site has the exciting perk of combining online and offline sales. If you’re going the online route, you may have to wait for a period between three and 10 days before getting paid for the gift card sold.
However, the offline sales route allows you to get paid instantly at a physical outlet. As a trader willing to try Gift card Bin, it’s in your best interest to decide which sales route is better for you.
CardCash
CardCash is one of the distinguished places for online gift card trading in Nigeria. Interestingly, the gift card trading site is distinguished for its ability to help you swap one gift card for another. You might just feel like exchanging your gift card for the gift card of a different retail store.
You can as well leverage CardCash for converting your gift cards into cash. It should excite you that CardCash might be your best bet for achieving as high as an 11% increase in earnings. Specifically, it’s a great place for trading in Amazon gift cards in Nigeria.
Cashcrate
Cashcrate allows for convenient trading of gift cards just as it removes the need for mailing your gift card to the buyer waiting to have it. What Cashcrate does instead is helping you dispatch the codes of your gift cards electronically. This way, it is a lot easy for you to give up your Amazon gift card in Nigeria and quickly get rewarded with cash.
Once your gift card sale has been completely processed, you can expect to get paid within two days of completing the sale. One of the favourable sides of Cashcrate is that for every gift card that you sell via the site, you’re guaranteed as high as 92% of the card’s selling price.
Card Kangaroo
Card Kangaroo does have a processing centre to which you’ll have to mail whatever gift card you’re willing to sell via the platform.
After mailing your gift card to the platform’s processing centre, you may have to wait for five business days for the gift card to get to them. Card Kangaroo pays you via PayPal within a two-day period from the moment it receives your gift card.
While Card Kangaroo also supports the method of paying by check, the gift card trading site is one of the best marketplaces for trading or selling Amazon gift cards.
Conclusion
Just as it is with other online businesses, gift card trading comes with its negative sides. We advise that you acquaint yourself with an understanding of these cons (negative sides) so that you don’t end up getting victimized.
We discussed the negative sides of gift card trading half way through this post. Do well to read that part of the post as well as the tips for drawing customers for your gift card business in Nigeria.
