July 21, 2025
Gift Card Reseller Program: Profit from Reselling Digital Rewards
The gift card market is booming as both supply and demand increase. Being a gift card reseller is one way to benefit from this market.
The gift card industry has experienced tremendous growth in recent times.
Gone are the days when it was mainly a way for individuals to gift themselves. Today, corporate organizations use them for gift card programs that include employee rewards and customer incentives.
Gift cards have also grown in variety. Gone are the days when it seemed that Starbucks, Amazon, and Walmart cards were the only offerings in town. Today, thousands of businesses in various sectors issue closed-loop gift cards (retail gift cards). Finance giants like Visa and Mastercard also provide open-loop gift cards (prepaid cards), and some of them can even be loaded using cryptocurrency.
No wonder that the gift card market was valued at $1.24 trillion in 2024 by Precedence Research, a market research company. They also expect it to become a $3.81 billion market by 2034 at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.24%.
Gift card market size, 2024 to 2034
Source: Precedence Research
How can your company benefit from this thriving market? It is by starting a gift card reseller program. As the connecting line between brands and individual and corporate buyers of gift cards, you can provide much value and get paid for it.
In this article, we will explain what gift card reselling is all about and how to start a gift card business from anywhere in the world. We’ll cover:
- What is a gift card reseller program?
- What are the functions of gift card resellers?
- How to become a gift card reseller
- Tips for launching a profitable gift card reseller program
Are you looking to resell gift cards for a profit? Sign up now for a demo to see how zendit’s API can help you set up a profitable gift card reselling business.
1. What is a gift card reseller program?
A gift card reseller program is a system where a business makes bulk purchases of a variety of gift cards from different brands and resells them to both individual and corporate consumers.
The businesses that act as connecting links between gift card issuers and gift card users are known as gift card resellers. Some also refer to them as gift card distributors, gift card vendors, and gift card wholesalers.
How do gift card resellers make money?
Since they purchase bulk gift cards at discounted prices (below the face value), they can resell them at a higher price (close to or a bit lower than the face value) for a profit.
For example, a bulk purchase of 100 $100 Netflix cards may result in a cost price per card of $90. If there is little to no competition, the reseller can sell at $100 for a gross profit of $10 per card. Alternatively, where the market is competitive, the reseller can sell at $97 per card for a gross profit of $7 per card.
Due to the growing demand for gift cards and the variety of that demand, gift card distribution has become a good way for businesses to open new revenue streams. This is especially easy for e-commerce businesses that only need to add them to their current product offerings.
But why should individuals and corporate organizations buy gift cards from resellers? Asked differently, what value do they provide?
2. What are the functions of gift card resellers?
There are at least five ways in which gift card resellers provide value to the ecosystem:
Variety
If a corporate organization is executing an employee reward program, for example, it will need a variety of gift cards to truly meet the diverse needs of its employees.
Suppose they give everyone a Netflix gift card. What happens to those employees who use Hulu instead? Or suppose they give everyone an Amazon gift card. What happens to those employees who need Xbox or Spotify gift cards?
In other words, the way to make everyone happy (and to avoid unwanted gift cards piling up) is to give them exactly what they need. But doing this will mean buying one gift card from this store, twenty from that store, then five from another store, and one from a distant store. This can easily turn into an inconvenient, time-consuming, and costly process.
Gift card resellers solve this problem. Since they already have cards from all these stores on offer, all this organization needs to do is visit the reseller’s store and select all the cards they need at once.
Individuals who also need multiple gift card options for an occasion or are heavy users of gift cards from multiple retailers also benefit from this.
Discounts
We saw above that resellers get to buy bulk gift cards at discounted prices. This gives them wiggle room to provide discounts to final users instead of selling at face value.
In competitive markets, resellers can even compete on price, which makes them cost-effective for final users. Even in non-competitive markets, discounts can be a way to win customers who would have purchased directly from the retailer.
Customization
Gift card resellers also make it easy for buyers to customize egift cards before delivery.
This can come in the form of personalized messages to the intended recipient. For example, Sam can add a birthday message on the gift card he wants to deliver to Brad; company X can also add personalized messages describing how valuable their employees are to them when executing an annual incentive plan.
Sample Visa gift card with a personalized message
With some resellers, corporate customers can create branded gift cards (customized with their brand logo and color), making it an opportunity to improve brand awareness.
Convenience
When discussing variety, we saw that gift card resellers take away the inconvenience of gift card purchase from multiple retailers (online or in-store).
Furthermore, most gift card resellers offer e-gift cards (instead of physical gift cards) that can be instantly delivered by email or text message. This takes away the need to visit a brick-and-mortar store to buy gift cards or use them.
Reporting
Some resellers can also create usage reports (no of cards purchased and amount spent for a given period) for individual and corporate users.
This is especially useful for the latter since they might want to know if there is a positive correlation between employee rewards and customer incentives and the bottom line.
3. How to become a gift card reseller
We have already seen how gift card resellers make money from the difference between their average cost price and selling price. Gift card resellers can have profit margins between 4-10%, according to Gigworker, a resource hub for side hustles.
Given that the gift card industry is a trillion-dollar economy, knowing how to start a gift card business can be a good way to increase your business revenue and generate new customers, whether you are a large, medium, or small business.
So, what do you need to start? Just three things:
An e-commerce platform
If your business is already selling products online, you already have an e-commerce platform.
But if you are a service-based business, you will need to integrate an e-commerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, etc.) on your website and/or mobile app.
These e-commerce platforms will make it possible for you to create product catalogs, add payment methods (debit cards, credit cards, and PayPal, etc.), create a checkout process, and receive payments from customers.
A gift card reseller API
Gift card reselling may look difficult since you need to offer products from hundreds and even thousands of retailers, provide customization options, handle the delivery of digital gift cards, verify the authenticity of products, and provide usage reports.
You probably think, rightly, that doing all of these will be too demanding (money and time).
Thankfully, you don’t have to bother with any of them.
Platforms like zendit have done all the hard work. All you need to do to start selling gift cards is to integrate their API into your website or mobile app.
They already have gift cards from various retailers (zendit has more than 15,000 products), the option to customize, a system that instantly delivers digital gift cards through email or SMS, a gift card activation software, and a report generation system.
A budget?
Some gift card partners may require that you purchase gift cards on their platform (at discounted prices, of course) before you can list and resell them to customers. In this case, you will need a budget for the number of gift cards you want to start with.
Interestingly, a platform like zendit does not require you to have an inventory of gift cards before you start reselling.
That is, you don’t have to purchase a gift card before you resell it. You can list all the gift cards you want, wait for a purchase from your customer, and then purchase the same gift card from zendit at discounted prices.
This ensures that you can start your gift card distribution business on a limited budget. Any budget you have will be for setting up your e-commerce platform (if you don’t have one) and marketing your products.
Also, once you have started buying wholesale gift cards for resale, you will need a financial report that shows key performance metrics (gift card sales, profit margins, historical trends of sales and profit, etc.). Your gift card partner should provide such a report for you.
4. Tips for launching a profitable gift card reseller program
Not all gift card reselling businesses succeed.
Thus, it is not enough to know how to become a gift card reseller; the key is to understand how to launch a profitable venture.
Below are some tips that will help you avoid common pitfalls and get started on the right foot:
- Partner with a trusted gift card API provider: You don’t want to end up dealing with chargeback issues because you are reselling used and compromised gift cards to customers.
The best way to prevent this is to work with trusted gift card API providers that have proper verification tools to prevent scams.
- Variety is key: We have seen that variety is a key selling point of gift card reselling. Thus, you need to work with API providers with a diverse and global catalog that can serve all types of customers.
Variety here means different brands and different offerings ($50, $100, $200, etc.) under each brand.
- Don’t compromise on marketing: It is not enough to add gift cards to your product catalogs. You need to get the word out, beginning with your current customers.
You should also consider offering impressive discounts and other incentives (referral bonus, multi-buy promotions, etc.) to gain a headway in the market.
Remember to also make good use of social media.
- Prioritize corporate users: While many individual customers wait till the holiday season to purchase gift cards, corporate users tend to be more consistent buyers. Employee rewards and customer incentives programs can be done at different times of the year, multiple times a year.
- Don’t compromise on fast delivery: In fact, this is one reason why some platforms require that you have inventories, since delay can occur between the time you are making the purchase and sending the card to the buyer.
Nevertheless, platforms like zendit have found a way to integrate the two – no inventory requirement and fast delivery of gift cards.
- Negotiate good deals: Your profit depends on the spread between the selling price and the cost price. Most sellers focus almost exclusively on the selling price. However, you may not have that luxury in competitive markets unless you have built a brand that customers love.
Thus, you also need to choose gift card partners that offer good deals. Reducing your average cost price is also a good way to become more profitable.
- Customization is a must: The ability of your customers to customize their gift cards (personalized messages and brand identities) before delivery is another key unique selling point of gift card reselling. Ensure the API you choose provides this ability.
- Choose a secure platform: Your chosen API platform should have security measures in place to protect you during the integration process and any time you use the platform.
For example, zendit provides first-rate security best practices like the ability to regenerate API keys if you believe the former ones have been compromised, whitelist IP addresses, authenticate transactions with ShieldWall, verify the authenticity of webhooks, and secure your product catalog by disabling the ones you don’t plan to sell.
- Don’t compromise on analytics: Only what is measured can be improved. Therefore, a good gift card API provider will ensure you have access to reports that will help you evaluate your performance and highlight areas for improvement.
Start your gift card reseller program with zendit
A run through the tips above shows that the API provider you choose is one of the most important success factors. This is one area where you must not compromise on quality.
At zendit, we provide you with a scalable gift card API that you can easily integrate into your existing platforms so you can start purchasing wholesale gift cards for resale.
We provide access to 16,000 products from global brands (both popular brands and lesser-known ones) that you can start selling without buying them first (no upfront costs or inventory needed). Our platform allows you to customize gift card products, instantly deliver them, and generate reports for your customers and yourself.
Furthermore, our API is platform-agnostic (you can integrate it into any app or environment, including iOS, Android, PHP, Node.js, etc) and we put in place security best practices that will protect you during the integration process.
What is more? Our API is scalable. This guarantees that an increase in transaction volume will not affect the smoothness of the user experience. No matter how large your requests, our API can handle them.
Are you ready to open new revenue streams by becoming a gift card reseller? Register for zendit today or sign up for a demo to see how our product can help you set up a profitable gift card reselling business.
Takeaways
- The global gift card industry is booming, projected to grow from $1.24 trillion in 2024 to $3.81 trillion by 2034, driven by increasing use cases beyond personal gifting, such as employee rewards, customer incentives, and loyalty programs.
- Resellers play a critical role by offering a wide variety of gift cards, providing discounted prices, and making the buying process more convenient and customizable for both individuals and corporate buyers.
- Anyone can start reselling gift cards using an e-commerce platform and an API provider like zendit. Gift card partners like zendit handle the sourcing, delivery, and reporting, allowing businesses to start with minimal budget and technical hassle.
- To run a profitable reseller business, it’s essential to partner with a trusted API provider, offer a wide variety of cards, prioritize corporate clients, ensure fast delivery, and invest in marketing and analytics to grow and optimize the business.
