DiscoveringStartups -Tech Startup Reviews

Mercardi is an online secondary marketplace that moves gift cards from people who won’t use them to those who will. Essentially our mission is to help consumers get value from dead cash in the form of unused gift sitting in their coupon and sock drawers.

We offer a 100% online e-commerce website that converts gift cards to instant cash and presents these gift cards at a discount to an online bargain hunter.

In addition to offering a 100% we also enable non-profit organizations to accept gift card donations via a turnkey fundraising solution. Non-profit organizations become our power-sellers, reducing our acquisition costs and thus increasing our margins. The biggest problem in the secondary gift card market is seller inertia and our non-profit sourcing model overcomes that!

Each year close to $10B is issued in retailer gift cards and about 10% of that goes unused. Americans are sitting on $40B of unused gift cards today. The market is not only huge but its growing at the rate of $7-8B each year.

Our business model is simple – we buy cards from individuals at a discount and give them cash in return. We turn the card around and present it at a lower discount to a bargain hunter. The spread in between the two discounts is Mercardi’s revenue.

For example, we buy a $100 Macy’s card from a seller for $80 then turn around and sell it to a buyer for $95. The $15 spread is what Mercardi makes.

No thoughts at the moment. Very interesting!

Please visit their website to learn more: http://www.mercardi.com