Why are the stores in my area not selling Apple Gift Cards anymore?

Montereycalifornia wrote:

I cannot find an Apple gift card anywhere. I have gone to all of the big stores that usually carry them. They tell me that no one has come to replenish the cards.

If you do not have an Apple Store or Authorized Apple dealer nearby, you can order them on apple.com. To Find locations, just choose "All Products" on this link to find Authorized Apple Sellers. They should have the Gift Cards along with the products. It will be much safer ordering the card directly on the Apple site as there are many Gift Card scams where they are made available on a rack where anyone can tamper with them.

At other locations, there are third party companies that stock all the Gift Cards at the stores in a large territory, it is not Apple that shows up to the stores to stock their own Gift Cards.

eno_on_ma_I wrote:

Local Walmart, Walgreens and grocery stores are all out of them. What the actual heck is going on here?!

I suggest you read the posts here and also watch the video provided by Jeff Donald. It may have saved you the money that you were going to use to purchase the Gift Card.

KyleYaj wrote:

I went to multiple stores in my area and couldn’t find any Apple Gift cards. What’s happening Apple?

Apple isn’t here.

There are stacks of Apple gift cards in the local New England stores.

(This cropped picture is from a few weeks back, but the rack was still well stocked earlier today.)

You can order gift cards directly from Apple.

Apple Gift Card - Apple

Which might be preferable to buying cards off an open rack, too.

They’re readily available in my area of Florida. They can also be purchased online at Apple.com/store. You can have them delivered to your email for quick use. You can even send them as a gift.

https://www.apple.com/shop/gift-cards

I got one to day I tried to redeem it but it said it didn’t work

That’s right even in New Jersey no stores sells gift cards anymore @apple please why ?

Local Walmart, Walgreens and grocery stores are all out of them. What the actual heck is going on here?!

Pretty sure that’s not the issue. Some of my grandkids and great grandchildren are in town and I bought gift cards for them today in the greater Tampa Bay Area.

Merchants/retailers are free to carry the products they want. The clerk behind the counter has no idea why a corporate office sells or doesn’t sell a particular product.

What retailer is it?

As far as I can tell there has been no discontinuance of physical gift cards by Apple. However, as pointed out already, it is up to a vendor if they wish to continue to carry them. I have seen a few vendors in my area stop carrying any brand of physical gift card at all.

Most mountain states don’t have Apple Stores, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota have 0 stores. His closest store is probably Winnipeg, Manitoba, only 800 miles round trip. The gas could well exceed the cost of the gift card.

We’re spoiled living in urban areas and having many conveniences available. 😀

The cash is an issue. Larger retailers may have them in stock and can more easily restock when supplies are misallocated. Many larger retailers are moving gift cards to a more secure location because of the increased risk of tampering and theft.

Yes, people do have their accounts hacked when they are not cautious and use weak passwords etc. That’s a part of living in the 21st century and is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Yes, gift card distribution is a big business and many independent and smaller chain merchants and franchisees rely on gift card distributors to purchase their merchandise (gift cards). Distributors may be partially liable in some of the ongoing fraudulent gift card activities.

Jeff Donald wrote:

Distributors may be partially liable in some of the ongoing fraudulent gift card activities.

Very true! Nobody has more access to the Gift Cards than the employees of the Distributors that stock them. Buying direct from Apple eliminates the middleman and a weak link in the chain of custody. I know you were an Apple Store manager, so you may be able to provide some insight on how the Gift Cards are managed at the Apple Store. I assume they come direct from Apple and do not use these Distributors.

LadyAntPearl wrote:

I went to buy an Apple Gift card the other day and no one has them in my area.

The store was actually doing you a favor. You may have not heard about people that camp out in these stores and tamper with the cards by scratching the codes and replacing them with new stickers that can be purchased from Amazon. This would leave you without a valid card and the stores do nothing to protect their customers with this happening right in their stores and will not refund your money. It is not Apple's responsibility monitor bad actors at these stores if the store refuses to secure the products they sell. Ironically you will see these stores lock up many products that they sell that thieves will steal, but could care less if they steal from YOU!

Evxiou wrote:

July 13 I went my local Walmart to buy a card but found out there is none. There was an apple gift card add for school graduations but no gift cards.

Walmart only sells them in their app and on their website for email delivery. The same is true for the Google Play Gift Cards. There had been a large number of complaints on this site about Gift Cards purchased at Walmart that were tampered with and the stores would not refund their money.