Amazon has reportedly pulled its popular gift cards from many retailers in New York — leaving shoppers and retailers in the dark about the sudden move.
The gift cards recently disappeared from aisles at Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Walgreens, CVS, and Wegmans, Buffalo-based NBC affiliate 2 On Your Side reported Friday.
Amazon did not comment on the gift card mystery when contacted by The Post on Wednesday.
The spokesperson noted that the e-commerce giant occasionally experiments with gift card purchasing methods and that gift cards are always available on the Amazon website.
While retailers pulling gift cards from store shelves is nothing new, doing so without any explanation is, Charles Lindsey, a University at Buffalo business professor, told the Buffalo TV station.
“Normally, there’s transparency about that” gift card pull, Lindsey said.
Lindsey said gift cards are pulled usually due to one of four reasons: an issue with gift card scams or a batch with faulty activation codes, making room for a new gift card promotion, a change in gift card regulations or an A/B test to measure the cards’ sales performance.
Some of the retailers have confirmed mass gift card pullbacks.
A Wegmans spokesperson told the Post that Amazon pulled its gift cards from all of its New York state locations.
A spokesperson for Tops Friendly Markets, a chain with locations in New York, Vermont and Pennsylvania, told the NBC affiliate that Amazon gift cards have been pulled from their stores across the Empire State.
CVS directed the Post to contact Amazon, while Dollar Tree, Dollar General and Walgreens did not respond to requests for comment.
Employees at Dollar Tree and Dollar General locations in Western New York told 2 On Your Side that Amazon representatives or employees from Amazon’s vending company visited their respective stores two weeks ago to begin pulling gift cards from the shelves.
Lindsey said he suspects Amazon is pulling its gift cards from stores to test if they are profitable enough, since retailers get a cut of all gift card purchases.
“It’s a small percentage, but they get a percentage of that load,” Lindsey said.
The business professor said Amazon is going to “look after the dust settles at the end of the day” and have to ask if they are truly “better off” when it comes to revenue and profit, especially since Amazon sells gift cards from its own site and can prevent passing along some of the purchase to brick-and-mortar retailers.
