Fred Meyer selling gift cards for competitors?

[Super S]

Stopped at my local Fred Meyer last night, and noted the large gift card display at the front of one of the aisles. This had gift cards for a variety of different businesses, various restaurants, Home Depot, etc. But what I found interesting is the number of gift cards available for Fred Meyer's competitors...for gasoline there were Chevron and Shell (this Fred Meyer has a Chevron right next to their own gas station) There were gift cards for a couple of jewelry stores, Best Buy, JCPenney, and Sears all available for purchase. I guess Fred Meyer would argue that it's a convenience factor,unless this was a Kroger idea, but I have to question why they would offer gift cards for businesses that could compete with them.

[klkla]

What's even funnier is that the gift card operation offered in Fred Meyer, Kroger, Albertson's and other supermarkets is operated by Safeway (via their Blackhawk Marketing division).

Safeway made a big investment in the technology that allows these cards to work at so many different stores and makes a large percentage of their profits from Blackhawk. The other stores carrying the card get a cut, too, so it's profitable for everyone involved. Safeway also earns the interest from the money that is spent to buy the card until the actual funds are spent (even more if the card is lost or never used).

[storewanderer]

Don't even get me started about what I think of Fred Meyer selling gift cards for various of its competition: Kohls, Sears, Best Buy, Macys, Home Depot, and the list goes on and on. Lots of restaurant gift cards too. I wonder if Fred Meyer was doing the buy $100 of gift cards receive $10 off instantly on select (including Best Buy and Sears) gift cards like Smiths was doing a few weeks ago. Seems like a real wise way to send customers right over to the competition and provide a discount to the customer for doing so.

Certainly this is a Kroger program. As pointed out they are on the Safeway gift card program.

The funny thing is many of these stores started off on a gift card program other than the Safeway one, but they have all ended up going to the Safeway program. The Safeway gift card program has a far better variety of gift cards than any other gift card program.

[Brian Lutz]

I think it's pretty much standard practice for grocery stores to be selling gift cards these days (QFC has basically the same selection of gift cards as Fred Meyer does,) but keep in mind that Fred Meyer is something of a "Jack-of-all-trades, master of none" retailer, and their selections in certain areas can be limited. It's interesting to note that at least a couple ofFred Meyer stores built here in the early part of this decade (Redmond and Issaquah, there may be others) were constructed right next door to Home Depot stores built at the same time. I do know of at least one of these store (Issaquah) that opened with a small lumber department, but ultimately ended up getting rid of it.

If we started seeing them selling gift cards for places like Target or Wal-Mart, then you'd have something unusual (come to think of it, I don't think I've seen Target or Wal-Mart gift cards sold anywhere besides Target or Wal-Mart.)

[Alpha8472]

I believe they sell gift cards to Sears, Kmart, and Target at Safeway and other supermarkets. However, I don't think Kmart is much of a threat to Safeway these days. I don't know if there are any Super Kmarts or Sears Grand stores competing against Safeway stores.

http://www.safeway.com/IFL/Grocery/Gift-Cards