You might be asking how do movie tickets and gift cards relate to land lording as a business?

How do they NOT!?!?!

Holy cow....so we go online last Friday to fandango to buy movie tickets using my wife's gift card she got for Christmas. We ordered 4 tickets....about $28 total for a matinee.

They tack on a $6.50 "convenience" fee. 23%!!!! People must love convenience.

To top it off you cannot use the gift card at the box office or concession stand to purchase anything. It has to be used on the website. It cannot be "cashed out" or refunded either. Once they get your money on the gift card, they hold it captive.

My company did a study a few years ago and found the typical person with a gift card fails to redeem somewhere between 3 - 10% of the card's face value. On the other side of the transaction, when someone makes purchases with a gift card the per ticket transaction averages 17% more than a non-gift card transaction.

Bottom line: gift cards and conveniences fees offer significant profit margins that people will PAY for it.

I need to start offering "Rent" gift cards that can only be used to pay rent. (wink)

David[MI]...nope, we tried going direct to the movie site...AMC Theater. Believe me, I'm a thrifty land lord and tried to find a way around the fee. The AMC website also charged a "convenience fee"...and it was HIGHER than fandango...by 25 cents., plus they charged TAX on top of it as a separate line item. Fandango didn't unless it was built into the (cheaper) convenience fee.

Guys, you're missing the point. The point is GIFT CARDS are ways to make fees. Yes, you and I might give them as gifts or find ways to redeem them that don't rack up fees. But you and I are not tenants. As others have observed here, tenants have different value systems than we do, and for many of them convenience is more important that total cost. Something to think about...what ways can we monetize this?

Sid, I have used gift cards to a lot of merchants, and none of them charge fees for using gift card instead of credit card or cash. And of course I never pay fees to buy a merchant gift card. In fact, I buy gift cards to rack up more airline miles than if I paid with my credit card directly.

So the fees is unique to movie theatres, nothing to do with gift cards.

Indeed -- as others have said, this is more related to the fact that almost all movie theaters now have "convenience fees" for online ticketing. (If you use an AMC gift card AT the theater, then there is no convenience fee for buying tickets and you can also use it for concessions.)

So, really, this is about paying a fee to be able to pay online. To relate that more to landlording, it would simply be charging an additional "convenience fee" for paying rent with direct deposit, ACH transfer, or any other online payment system. (Some of which already do charge those fees for the "convenience", of course.)

All that being said, I think Sid's random idea of offering "rent gift cards" for sale so that tenants could tell their family to buy them as gifts might be worth trying. Although, a simpler thing would be to just tell the family to make a rent payment instead of buying the "gift card."

- John...

Love creative business thought:) Got my mind going...

Of all the different ideas discussed, I'm currently liking most the idea of letting residents know that they can inform relatives that their (the resident's) management company offers Rent Gift Cards that relatives can buy in advance to give as a gift to the residents.

Seems to me that a relative would find it as a much more positive gesture and be much more inclined to buy a "Gift" Rent Card to give as a present (which the resident can use anytime during the upcoming year) than simply paying rent for somebody who has gotten behind (which is done in the context of a negatve situation rather positive one)

And to connect this to the fee concept; for every $100 purchased toward the Rent Gift Card, their is a $5.00 fee. So $500 worth of Gift Cards would only add on $25.00 in cost.

Sid,

I understood your post. A creative way to bring in money NOW thru pre-sales and service fees, some of which will never be redeemed.

I hate Menard's and Lowes rebates. They KNOW many will never be filed or redeemed. Plus I have to spend it in the store.

100 years ago when I had a J.O.B. our nationwide company was in financial trouble. The boss tacked a $4 handling fee on every order (the customers knew in advance)

Only a few of my customers said anything. Most just went along with it (because they loved their great salesman so much!)

This $4 "nuisance fee" over THOUSANDS of orders brought in enough cash to save the company.

Side note: my average commission was $4 per order, so the company increased income equal to my commissions!

Musk instantly raised $325Million CASH, interest free, by taking pre-orders on the new car which has not been released to the public yet.

"Find what people want and let them pay you for it."

Bedbugs, obscene prices calories and sugar, the f word, and Netflix have cured me of theaters.

One building that I don't have enough parking spaces, I offer my first few tenants who pay their rents early get a months free parking a commercial garage across the street. Now everyone tenant pays early to win free parking. Like the lotto.

I also own three single family homes within walking distance to a mall (Fallbrook Mall in West Hills, CA).

I offer those tenants a free movie passes for each month they pay the rent, check received before the 1st of the month. Now they pay by the 25th, for rent due on the 1st.

Three of my apartment buildings are close to each other in North Hollywood, ca. There on the main street we have the Metro Subway, several dinning establishments, a laundry mat and a tool store. I offer my tenants a choice of which gift they want to receive for paying their rents on time. A $10 metro pre-paid card or a $10 debit card. Or a coupon to on store nearby -- Like buy one get one free -- subway...

So how does it work?

You offer gift cards, say $25 off rent, but the card can only be used for a certain month? A month of their choosing. Of course the card will have to be printed with the month that it can be used. They will have to include the card with the rent or if direct deposit mail the card to you a little in advance so you can see why they only deposited $575 instead of the $600. No refunds or rebates if card is lost or washed in the washer machine.

So they get the family to buy some cards for them. Let’s say different family members buys two cards for Oct 2017, different family members buys one or more cards for Dec 2017, and so on. A different family members buys one card for April 2018 as that is the tenant’s birthday and two cards for June 2018 as that is their anniversary. Then all of a sudden in January of 2018 the tenant moves out. Cards cannot be used and you have pocketed the money from the cards bought for 2018.

Is this right, wrong, moral or just another way to make additional money.

I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking this idea through but do realize there is a little more work on the LL’s part if the tenant moves out.

Second part is try to have tenant buy a years worth of monthly cards (may have to give a bigger discount) but this could be one way to increase your chance of tenant retention.

Lots of people on here a lot smarter than I am. What do you think?