As I look into my posts, I thought I wrote a review on Giftcard Zen, but apparently I never did. I will have a quick introduction to how I found Zen. When GiftCardGranny was the best site around, I would check the site regularly to see what exchanges were available to sell on and which sites had the best offers. That is how I heard about sell Gift card Zen around this time two years ago. There haven’t been many complaints if at all compared to Cardcash and Cardpool. If I wanted to really nitpick, then Zen might not have the best rates available compared to the other exchanges. They are competitive, but depending on the brand, not competitive enough.
What makes them better than everyone is their great web site and the user experience and that is why I like them so much, but they are actually not the site I will recommend you to sell your gift cards today. Unless you operate a small time exchange, then you should sell on Zen. Otherwise, there is a better option.
The Recommendation
This past summer, Zen had “cleaned” house and closed many bulk accounts who spend their time in gift card arbitrage. I was told that by the end of this year I will likely be out of the program as well. Folks who would scoop up all the TGI Friday’s deals from eBay and offloading it onto Zen was not good business for everyone. If you have done any reselling or sell a gift card on Raise, you could become a little obsessive and check every hour to see if something sold because of the inventory. Same thing with Zen, not that they are checking every hour, but if you have inventory and it is not selling this hurts your cash flow, especially when you are sacked with Friday’s gift cards. Just think of all that inventory not moving and has tied up all your cash, that’s really bad for business.
Sometimes I like working with Raise. Depends on how much I have going on. If I have a gigantic balance on all my credit it cards, I am not very keen on selling on Raise because I like knowing being paid a couple of days after the gift cards are verified.
My recommendation for anyone who is starting off with selling gift cards is Cardpool.
Why Cardpool?
Operationally speaking, they are top notch. When I first started reselling gift cards over 3 years ago, Cardpool was my go to exchange. There have been reports here on the blog as well as on the Saverocity Forum where people are quickly shut down because they ramp up too fast. Don’t do that. You should not have too many problems if you go with this route and sell gift cards.
To reiterate, I started my business relationship with Cardpool slowly. I always clicked through TopCashBack for 4% for the first $1000 in purchases. That 4% deal, sadly is over. When I first started to learn the ropes, I bought all my cards from the eBay deals and stacked with eBay Bucks. Today, due to higher exposure, there have been times where the rate changes shortly after an eBay deal, so you need to be a little more careful.
After the slow ramp up and I was around of $10,000 in sales, I asked Cardpool to join their bulk sales program. Once I verified my identity and signed the waiver on sold cards, there have been nearly zero issues with selling any of the cards.
The only time I had an issue with selling to Cardpool was selling over $1000 of Starbucks. It is because Starbucks is highly transferable is why they declined all my transactions. The simple fix? Just don’t enter the PIN.
GCZ was quite nasty to me, essentially saying people who are trying to buy gift cards for miles/points are NOT THEIR CUP OF TEA.