Holiday Season - Boom or Bust

In the final case reviewed for chapter 7, we discussed strategies companies might use if they had no information on the recipients of gift cards -- and how that would affect demand and supply of products. My original notion was to ask the purchasers of the cards who they intended on gifting them to, however you noted that many people purchase them without a particular person in mind, but rather to purchase them for the holiday season and gift them as one sees fit. I think that by asking a person who they are purchasing a gift card for - regardless, would assist in predicting demand for certain product. Not everyone will know who they are purchasing for, but often times a good amount of people come to purchase a card for a specific someone. A combination of keeping track of this information in a digital system and good forecasting software would be the best option for this situation.