Stock Investing Gift Cards are a great, easy way to give stock to someone you care about. 

Gift cards have long been a huge part of holidays, birthdays and other celebratory traditions. They’re a quick and easy way to offer someone money while still including a personal touch by purchasing it from their favorite store. But what if gift cards offered more than just the joy of a one time purchase? What if the next gift card you gave someone essentially gave them the opportunity to double it’s worth-maybe even make the person quite wealthy? Welcome stock investing gift cards. Well, this is exactly what a new start up company, Stockpile, is helping people with. And in this article we’re going to explain what this company offers and exactly how it works.

What Is Stockpile?

Stockpile is a relatively new gift card company based in California. However, this company is unlike many others in that instead of offering traditional gift cards which can normally be redeemed for merchandise or even cash, Stockpile’s gift cards offer shares in company stock. That’s right, this company puts stock just within the reach of your average, everyday consumer. The cards can easily be purchased at retail outlets, drug stores and grocery stores.

Though Stockpile may be considered revolutionary, it is not the only one of its kind. There are a few other companies that are working to apply technology to investing with the hope of bringing down fees and opening this particular market to a wider range of investors.

Okay, So How Does This Work?

The whole process is quite simple and pretty straight-forward. Let’s say you’re shopping in one of your favorite stores and remember that you need to purchase a gift for your cousin’s birthday. You decide to purchase one of Stockpile’s gift card that’s worth $100 of Disney stock. Your cousin goes online and then creates an account by entering their social security, birth date and other basic details. They then enter a code from the card in order to redeem their stock.

This means that if Disney closes that day worth $200 per share, your cousin will own half a share of Disney stock, which he or she can then monitor through Stockpile’s system. And if this person decides that they would like to trade their Disney stock, they can choose the same amount of stock in another one of Stockpile’s many selections.

Stockpile even takes it a step further by giving the recipient more options. If the recipient of the card would like to play a larger role in the market, he or she can later start selling and buying stocks through the company’s interface for 99 cents per trade. And the best part about it is, your cousin won’t be expected to pay any fees while their investment is being held.

However, it’s important to note that Stockpile does take into account that not everyone will want to play the stock market. If using a gift card to buy stocks does not appeal to the person, they may opt to trade their stake in for a traditional (cash) gift card.

How Much Do The Cards Cost?

The cost of your card will be heavily dependent on where you actually make your purchase. If you purchase your stock trading gift card in stores, then you should expect that a $25 card will cost you $29.95. A $50 card will cost $56.95. The $100 cards cost a total of $107.95. However, if you are making your purchase online, you should expect to pay the value of the card and $1.99 for any amount $100 or less. These gits cards are available for up $1,000, so for amounts over $100 you’ll be expected to pay the $1.99 plus 3% of your card’s value.

Where Can The Cards Be Purchased?

Even though this company has gained wide notoriety, the number of locations in which the cards are being sold is still limited. There are six places in which you can get your physical cards: Giant Eagle, Supervalu, Kmart, Buehler’s, Safeway and Wegman’s. You may also have your cards shipped directly to your front door.

What Companies Are Offered?

In the retail stores, Stockpile is selling cards for about 20 different companies, including brands that don’t have anything to with technology such as Walt Disney, Starbucks and Pfizer.

The company also has exchange-traded funds for major stock indexes as well as gold. The company also sells cards that let’s the consumer decide in which stock they would like to invest in. However, it’s top performers are:

-Apple

-Walt Disney

-Amazon.com

-Tesla

-Facebook 

-Google

-Berkshire Hathaway

-Nike

-Twitter

How Is Stockpile Different From Other Brokerage Companies?

Ordinarily if you wanted to give someone stock, both you and the recipient would be required to sign up for an account with that brokerage. The process is usually made very tedious and drawn out by requiring that the person who is giving the stock to fill out a lot of paperwork in order to be approved.

They usually ask for quite a bit of personal information in hopes that you will be persuaded to continue using their services in the future. Stockpile doesn’t do this. They only request the most basic and important information from you. And those who do give their information are immediately verified and approved through Stockpile’s system. And just in case you’re wondering, yes, Stockpile is licensed as a dealer by the Securities and Exchange Commission. So your gift card investing is a legitimate process.

Conclusion

As you can see, companies like Stockpile will revolutionize the way we give gifts. “We’re making it easy and affordable for anybody to give, get, and own stock in their favorite companies,” says Avi Lele, Stockpile’s cofounder and CEO.

Not only that but giving consumers the option of buying stocks with a gift card could single handily take finance and investing into the everyday mainstream. What is now seemingly convoluted and tedious could soon be a popular past time.