I read this book by Joel Waldfogel subtitled, “Why you shouldn’t buy presents for the Holidays,” during the 2010 Holiday season, and I really liked his idea of stopping the loss of value (economically speaking) of purchasing presents for people by having businesses issue gift cards that expire at some time if they are not used, and when they expire, all the remaining funds are passed on to a charity.
The great thing about this is it doesn’t unnecessarily improve the bottom line of the gift card issuer, it assures the gift giver that there will be no loss of value in their gift if the recipient doesn’t like the vendor of the gift card, or they forget to use it; and if those things happen, then the funds go to a good cause.