Retailers call it “sophisticated marketing” while privacy advocates call it “intrusive”. It’s called Shopkick, and it knows where you’re shopping.

Shopkick has only recently been launched on an unsuspecting shopping public (initially in major US cities).

In a nutshell, this snappy little smartphone app follows you from store to store, from counter to counter, and even from fitting room to fitting room while sending current promotions to you. It’s one thing being bombarded with sales and specials from the sides of buses or while you’re watching TV. But it’s quite another when you’re squeezed in a fitting room wondering if your bum looks big in those new jeans you’re trying on.

But how does this technical wizardry actually work? An audio transmitter in each store sends out a signal to the app whenever you enter the store. You can’t hear it, but the app does. Simple, (if slightly unnerving).

There’s a carrot, of course, in the form of kickbucks. Basically these are points that you earn simply by entering a store (and even more for a fitting room). These kickbucks can be redeemed at the participating retailers for gift cards or music downloads.

In case you’re already thinking of spending a day dashing in and out of shops just to accumulate some kickbucks, there’s a limit to the amount you can earn daily. Plus, the 1,250 kickbucks you would need to earn just a $5 gift card, kind of makes it a bit of an exercise in futility trying to cheat the system.

Would you agree to effectively being monitored every step of the way whenever you go shopping? Maybe it depends on what shops you go into. Would visitors to “adult shops”, for example, really want their visits electronically recorded? Probably not.

There’s no question that green is now well and truly the new black, so the boom in the use of supposedly green gift cards and vouchers should come as no surprise to anyone. What is a surprise, however, is that the green credentials of these cards are not what we’ve been led to believe.

In fact, thee gift cards and vouchers are struggling to retain their environmentally friendly reputations. The problem with these “reusable plastic” gift cards is that, well… people don’t reuse them.

When you give someone a gift card or voucher as a birthday present, for example, you don’t really expect that person to come back to you in a month’s time asking for you to put more money on the card. Somehow, when the idea of the “reusable plastic” gift card was still in the pipeline, no-one actually thought of this fairly crucial point.

As the almost 10 billion gift cards that are created every year are made with that old favourite, PVC, that’s a whole lot of plastic destined for landfill, along with all those discarded water bottles and plastic shopping bags. Apparently the recycling of PVC plastics is too cumbersome and expensive for councils to consider it as a viable option.

Retailers who are concerned about the environment are therefore being encouraged to re-think their use of plastic gift cards and vouchers. But as the pre-paid gift card market in the US alone is estimated at $80 billion a year, that’s a change we shouldn’t really be expecting to see any time soon.

Okay, hands up everyone out there who tends to leave their gift shopping till the last minute.

Chances are, you’re part of the almost 50% of all e-gift card shoppers who are in the same boat, so you’re certainly not alone.

The connection between e-gift cards and last-minute shopping isn’t exactly a mysterious one. A recent study by US payment provider Blackhawk Network revealed that almost half of all gift card users over the previous 12 months appear to have time management issues and leave their shopping to the last minute. The advantages of e-gift cards for these hapless souls can’t be underestimated.

Half an hour online, a few clicks of the mouse and the gift card has landed in the recipient’s inbox, with no postage costs to worry about or, more importantly, no precious time lost to allow for delivery. The sender can rest assured that the recipient knows they’re thinking of them and has remembered the occasion in a timely manner. In short, everyone’s happy.

Recognising this burgeoning trend, Blackhawk Network has recently expanded its eGift Card program to include even more retailing options than ever before.

I bet you can already think of a few people you know who’ll be using e-gift cards on Christmas Day!

Next time you’re waiting to catch a train or bus or when you’re meeting friends at a bar and you’re the first to arrive, make practical use of that unexpected down time by selling unwanted gift cards with your iPhone or iPod Touch.

The new GiftCard Trader application means you can list your own unwanted gift cards for sale as well as buying other people’s surplus cards, at discount prices. And all of this trading is free. Who needs the stockmarket when you can conduct these handy money-making transactions?

With over 20% of all gift cards and vouchers idling away their lives unwanted and forgotten in people’s wallets and handbags (or even in their underwear drawers!), you don’t have to be a genius to see the mini fortunes that are just lying in wait.

Download GiftCard Trader and the benefits are twofold. You can get rid of those surplus gift cards clogging up your wallet, and you’ll have a practical money-making activity to do whenever you’re waiting to meet someone who’s running late.

If there’s one thing seasoned shopaholics really know well, it’s their gift cards. But these days there are just so many of them available, with so many different features, terms and conditions.

Introducing Scripsmart: how they rate regarding consumer friendliness, flexibility, popularity, reliability, as well as information on how to properly manage them and common hidden traps to look out for.

As the site is US-based, the information is mostly only pertinent to Americans, but any gift card aficionado, no matter where they live, is sure to find oodles of interesting info nonetheless.

Scripsmart lists the top-scoring gift cards as well as their “score” For example, the Disney card is currently at the top of the class with a score of 99, while in the world of eCards, it’s Bloomingdale’s on top of the heap with 95.

Different categories of gift card are also examined, with the top three being retail, women and apparel, confirming what everyone’s already known since time immemorial – that women love to go clothes shopping!

A Scripsmart account will also provide the user with useful messages and regularly updated information on the cards the user has registered in their “gift card wallet”. No more trawling the Internet doing the homework – Scripsmart does it all for you.

The most useful feature of Scripsmart is that it systematically ranks not just the cards themselves, but also the relevant governing laws of each US state, assigning both card and state a grade from A to F – just like in school.

With A and B indicating the card (or state) offers good consumer protection, D or F hovers down at the other end of the spectrum. Alarmingly, with only 8 US states being awarded A or B and a total of 39 states either D or F, it just goes to show how much this service is actually needed.

Swapping, selling and buying plastic gift cards is nothing new but here’s something I haven’t seen before…

Not only is CardsUWant.com is a fabulous online marketplace for buying gift cards at up to 40% off and for converting your unwanted cards into instant cash, but they’ve also got a great range of merchants who sell e-gift cards.

Instead of handing someone a plastic gift card for their birthday, Christmas or baby shower in person, e-gift cards are terrific for those who live on the other side of the world – and especially great for those who remember all-too-late on the day when it’s someone’s birthday.

The 16 merchants on there to date range from Bedandbreakfast.com to Zappos. The balances on the e-gift cards are low – $US25 and $US50 – but they should get you out of hot water celebration-wise when it absolutely, positively has to be there before you get an abusive phone call, text or email.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, gift cards have gone ballistic in popularity – with about 15% of adults purchasing them in 2005 skyrocketing to 60% in 2009!

With the increased popularity comes the increased likelihood that you have more than a couple of gift cards to manage.

The guys at TangoCard did some research in late 2008 and found that a whopping 87% of people who have gift cards actually want to use those gift cards, but the 75% of people who lose/don’t use their gift cards did so because they either forgot about them or lost them!

One way to protect the pretty sizeable balance of unused credit that’s just going to go straight down the gurgler if cards get damaged, lost or simply forgotten about is to register them with TangoCard.com’s free online service for managing multiple gift card balances. It even has an iPhone app to store your balances and check your balances.

If you have only one gift card or several from the same retailer, it’s easier to keep track of, but for everyone else, TangoCard is the perfect solution for streamlining the management of your cards and making sure that not a single cent of your balance ever goes to waste.

It’s time to Tango, baby.

Perhaps the US merchants have been lobbying hard, but the original deadline of 22 August 2010 for them to ensure all gift cards have five years expiry has been extended to 31 January 20111.

This new deadline takes it safely past a four-month holiday period when 90% of all gift card sales are made. 

Gift occasions on which gift cards are purchased include baby season (September/October), Halloween (31 October), engagement season (September-November), Thanksgiving (late November), wedding season (in Australia from November-December), and Christmas and New Year’s Eve (December) so merchants don’t have to destroy and replace an estimated 100 million cards which are already on the retail shelves.

Customers who buy gift cards during the six-month transition period between now and January 2011 will receive the full benefits of the new gift card rules.

This means no service fees or ATM fees can be charged until one year of inactivity (and then only one fee per month), gift cards have expiry dates of five years from the last load (aka deposit of extra funds), free replacement cards must be issued or the issuers can reimburse the cardholder, full T&Cs must be displayed and conspicuous disclosures regarding gift card use must be made prior to purchase.

Still, why would anyone wait five years? There’s inflation which will go up – but the value on your gift won’t – and the risk of the store closing, which happens.

I am quite sure the gift cards will outlast some relationships.

The Journal of Consumer Research has another interesting study regarding the psychology behind some of the decisions we make as consumers. It claims that certain brands have characteristics, or rather perceived characteristics, which make us feel better about ourselves when we use their products.

Since most of us would like to feel more glamorous, good-looking, confident and intelligent we subconsciously seek these qualities in the consumer brands we choose to associate with in our daily life. It’s this desire to cultivate positive qualities and attributes that lies behind the success and consumer popularity of some well-known brands such as Nike, Cartier and Harley-Davidson.

An engagement gift presented in a Tiffany box has a very different impact on the recipient than one from Target, in the same way that gift cards given at Christmas for clothing from Ralph Lauren will get a very different response than ones for Ripcurl.

Why? The authors of the study, Deborah Roedder and Ji Kyung Park from the University of Minnesota, describe these brands as having “personalities” with distinct traits that consumers respond to. “Using brands with appealing personalities can rub off on the way consumers see themselves, even if the brand is used for only a short time,” the authors say.

It’s this personification of brands that lies beneath their appeal, which confirms what we’ve already known all along – that is, how crucial good marketing of a brand or product can be in its success. Just as humans with appealing personalities tend to be popular, the same can apply to certain brands.

Another interesting observation that came out of the studies was that there appear to be two different types of consumers. The first type believes their personal character traits are fixed and can only be enhanced by association with certain appealing brands, while the second type believes their personality traits are mutable and can therefore be cultivated through self-improvement.

This second consumer profile is therefore less likely to be influenced by the perceived appeal of certain brands, the authors claim.

Either way, it goes some way to explaining why some people “wouldn’t be seen dead” wearing/eating/reading/using Brand X but will go to ridiculous lengths to obtain Brand Y that makes them feel a certain way. If you’re not sure of their taste, ask some questions!

Love to shop? If you and your partner become the Face of LoveStars at www.itsinthestarsonline.com, you could win a $AUD500 gift card to the retailer of your choice (or hey, 5 x $100 gift cards to 5 retailers – your call!) simply by entering the Be the Face of LoveStars photo competition.

Have a friend or family member take a high resolution (300dpi) colour shot  or two of you and your partner happily reading your hardcover LoveStars astrology report together.

If you win, you’ll receive the $AUD500 gift card. If you’re one of 5 x runners-up, you’ll win back the cost of your hardcover LoveStars report (from $89), credited to your Visa or Mastercard credit card.

LoveStars reports make ideal personalised gifts for couples for anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas, engagements, Valentines Day and weddings. These 30-35 page reports help any couple – newly dating or married for ages – (re)discover the magic in their relationship.

The Be the Face of LoveStars photo competition finishes 31 August 2010.