Zeek app offers way to sell unwanted gift vouchers

You can now sell unwanted gift cards and vouchers via a dedicated app.

Got some gift vouchers or cards you don't want? A new smartphone app called Zeek offers a marketplace to sell them, and to buy them.

This means people who receive unwanted vouchers and cards for Christmas should have little trouble offloading them, while buyers can save money by buying them cheaply.

How does it work?

First you need to download the app from the App Store or Google Play.

If you’re selling a gift voucher you need to open an account with Zeek then list your voucher for sale. Most vouchers are listed at a 20-25% discount.

A message will be sent to you when your voucher has been bought. You then send the voucher to the Zeek offices through registered post.

Once the voucher has arrived and been verified, payment will be sent to your account within 14 business days by either bank transfer or PayPal.

If you want to buy a voucher, you simply open the app, select the voucher you want to buy and pay using credit card or PayPal. You’ll receive the voucher within seven business days or immediately if it’s an electronic voucher.

There are some decent discounts on offer on Zeek: a £25 Zara voucher for £18 (28% discount); a £45 Topman voucher for £36 (20% discount); and a £20 Amazon voucher for £16 (20% discount) among others at the time of writing.

[Related story: Why you shouldn't give gift vouchers for Christmas]

Do people still buy gift vouchers?

Gift vouchers are big business. The UK Gift Card and Voucher Association values the UK market at £5 billion.

It says that 54% of men and 62% of women get between one and five gift cards or vouchers a year. 

Up to 47% of gift cards received go unredeemed because recipients either don't like the store they're for, or they lose them.

Men are more likely to let a gift card expire with 51% of those surveyed saying they had let a gift card expire. Yorkshire is the area in which most gift cards go unredeemed, followed by London, then Scotland and the Midlands in joint third place. 

According to Zeek, most of us would sell an unwanted gift card or voucher for less than face value – unless we live in London. Half (51%) of Londoners surveyed said they wouldn't sell it for less than face value. 

The pitfalls of gift vouchers

Apart from the obvious downside of receiving a gift voucher for a shop you either don’t like or isn’t near you, gift vouchers have other disadvantages too.

Firstly, most come with an expiry date. This could be anything from six months to 10 years although many never expire.

Vouchers for posh department store Harvey Nichols expire in just six months and you can’t use them online either. With only a handful of stores scattered across the country, plenty of the store’s vouchers expire without being used, while Harvey Nichols pocket the cash.

What if a shop goes bust?

The past few years have seen plenty of high street stalwarts go into administration – Phones4U, La Senza and Woolworths, for example.

Although it might not seem fair, once a store is in the hands of administrators they are allowed to change the rules surrounding gift vouchers and cards, even if the shops are still open and trading.

Usually the shops won’t honour gift vouchers or refund them. People holding gift vouchers effectively become creditors of the company in question and they’ll be at the bottom of the list and so are unlikely to get any of their money back.