The electronic gift cards are primarily created for online shopping. Though some gift card providers will allow you to print an electronic gift card and use it in-stores, there are only a few of them.

Electronic gift cards are usually purchased online and are delivered to an email address. The email address can be that of the recipient, especially if the gift card is personalized with name and message when bought. Otherwise, the gift card can also be delivered to the buyer’s email for personalization.

Where to Purchase Electronic Gift Cards

A lot of businesses offer electronic gift cards on their site. Generally speaking, there are few things that you need to prepare when buying electronic gift cards online. They include information like name and email address of the recipient, a personal message to the recipient, and the amount of the electronic gift card that you need to purchase. Aside from this, you also need to prepare your credit card for online transaction.

There are a lot of websites that offers electronic gift cards. Some of the popular ones are as follows:

• Walmart e-Gift Cards
• Amazon e-Gift Cards
• Ebay e-Gift Cards
• Discover e-Gift Cards
• Visa e-Gift Cards
• MasterCard e-Gift Cards

There are more items that can be found in the e-gift card and e-gift certificate list.

How to Use Electronic Gift Cards

As introduced in earlier, electronic gift cards makes use of common features for online shopping such as username, password and PIN. The main thought is that upon checkout when asked to select an option for payment, you need to choose the gift card (as if presenting the card to the cashier). Afterwards, you need to provide necessary identification such as gift card number and a PIN if required. Balance deduction to the electronic gift card functions similarly to most plastic gift cards.

How Secure are Electronic Gift Cards

There is no assurance that all website are secured. In most cases, those that allow both electronic gift cards and credit cards as modes of payment are likely secured especially if it’s offered by the official sites of popular brands such as Amazon.

It is good to know the basic ways to check if a website is secured. Some simple ways include:

• The URL is valid and matches the title of the website. (ex. Amazon is displayed in the browser but the URL shows www.xyz.com)
• The website displays logo of trust and security, like Verisign
• The URL starts with “https” which represents a secure connection