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On December 6th, troubled photography retailer Jessops launched new eGift vouchers. Just over a month later, it’s gone into administration and has stopped accepting vouchers as payment.
It’s happened at a spectacularly bad time for consumers, just after Christmas, when many were given regular gift vouchers and new eGift vouchers as presents.
The retailer must’ve been keen to create new prospects for income, but in hindsight launching the new eGift vouchers in December was very poor timing as it likely increased the number of Jessops vouchers in customers’ hands.
They were sold the vouchers as an easy way to buy a last minute present, with the promise that they would be just as easy to redeem.
In the end there was a mere two weeks between Christmas and the firm going into administration – not long at all to get to the High Street and choose what to spend their gifts on.
At the time of launch, Sean Emmett, marketing and e-commerce drector at Jessops, said, "We are very excited to launch this new service to our customers as we consistently strive to provide Jessops customers with more choice in every area of our business and therefore making the shopping experience with us easier and more convenient at all times. Being able to buy a gift online 24/7 and spend the eGift Card in over 180 stores nationwide is a great example of this."
Sadly it’s unlikely that those consumers with worthless gift vouchers have had a particularly ‘convenient’ shopping experience.
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