Was reading this post on Mashable when I came across how ZocDoc gives a $10 Amazon gift certificate as a “Sorry” gesture everytime a doctor cancels an appointment of the customer. Was wondering…you know, Amazon should start a B2B business for gift cards. Where basically, a business could buy like $10,000 dollars worth of gift cards at say $9000 and then distribute them as and when they see fit. Maybe, buy a product of theirs and get a $1 gift card free.
Even better, make the distribution model of gift cards virtual like an e-topup (virtual talktime transfer in telecom businesses) . So instead of a fixed denomination/ count of cards, (say, 1000 $10 cards or 100 $100 cards) a business has a “balance” of $10,000 and can create vouchers for any denomination that they please. Basically, these companies become distributors of Amazon gift cards at no extra cost ! Plus, the businesses increase their chances of retaining customers after any major or minor snafu !
Don’t now whether they already have arrangements like this but this could really help taking on the daily deals markets. Actually, even daily deals businesses could provide similar coupons by turning their business model on their heads. But that, I will come to in another post.
