Or, as future generations will surely ask, “What’s a wallet?” After all, just about everything you can store in your wallet can now be digitized into your smartphone.
Take gift cards for example. We love to give them (because we’re lazy) and receive them (it offsets the shame of our laziness). So it’s no surprise that we rarely bother to redeem them. A recent study found that $6 billion worth of gift cards go unredeemed every year.
Enter Gyft, a new app that allows you to store and redeem gift cards with your phone. Simply download the app and enter each card’s basic info and balance into the Gyft “wallet.” Then, the next time you’re at one of those retailers, open the app, click on the relevant card and proudly present it at checkout. It even works with online retailers like Amazon.
Here’s the best part. You can “regyft” unwanted cards – Oh my, a $50 Waffle House gift card. Mr. Maladroit, you shouldn’t have. – via email or text message to friends who might actually use them.