Back in the day, aka the late 90s, my sister and I were sent gift vouchers from the aunts and uncles we didn鈥檛 see at Christmas. In particular I remember bright orange ones we would spend in WH Smith on Goosebumps books and B*Witched cassettes (I was not lying about the 90s). There was no real change given in gift voucher land 鈥 you鈥檇 get a slip of paper in lieu of 拢1 if you were lucky but beyond that if you didn鈥檛 spend it in one transaction it was gone.
Fast forward a couple of decades and things have moved on, although apparently R L Stein is still knocking out Goosebumps books at an alarming rate. The paper gift voucher has been pretty universally replaced by the debit style gift card which will keep track of every last penny available to you. Pretty much every national chain and large shopping centre has its own gift card scheme but until recently there was certainly a gap in the market for something more destination based. I first talked about city wide gift cards in 2014 back in my previous role at Winchester BID. They were something that a colleague and I wanted to see implemented but didn鈥檛 have the know-how, or the budget, to bring to life. Now I鈥檓 back over the border and launching A Gift Card 欧美成人 just in time for Christmas.
Place based gift cards, largely co-ordinated by BIDs, are popping up all over the place at the moment, Cheltenham, Sheffield and Perth for example and recently just next door in Newport. What we think makes our gift card special here in Cardiff though is that it鈥檚 focused on the city鈥檚 small businesses. A part of the thinking behind these schemes is that they keep money circulating in the local economy and that鈥檚 doubly true for money spent in small businesses actually more than doubly true once you do the maths. I鈥檓 not going to come out and say that this proves that Cardiff is better than Newport but I am happy to leave the question out there for South Wales to answer.
So far more than 50 of Cardiff鈥檚 small businesses have signed up to the card and we鈥檙e always happy to take on more. If you take a look at this map of where the card can be redeemed you鈥檒l notice that we鈥檙e highlighting one of our lovely city鈥檚 key features 鈥 the networking of beautiful arcades! So why not make the Christmas gift you give to your fussy friends and family, or even your fussy staff A Gift Card 欧美成人 鈥 shop now at www.cardiffgiftcard.com