Dive Brief:

• Holiday shoppers will spend more than $31 billion on gift cards this season, according to the National Retail Federation’s Gift Card Spending Survey conducted Nov. 3 to 10.

• The average total spending per gift-card purchaser will be $172.74, up from $163.16 last year. For the NRF’s report, Prosper Insights & Analytics surveyed 6,593 consumers.

• The increase is in part attributed to gift cards' desirability, with 62% of consumers saying they’d like to receive one. That makes gift cards the most requested item for the past eight years, the survey found.

Dive Insight:

Gift cards are practical gifts, and they’re apparently practically perfect, considering how desirable they are. Both givers and receivers like the convenience for the buyer and the way they give the receiver freedom to choose what they’d like.

Meanwhile, for those who got gift cards they actually can’t use, raise.com just launched an app that allows users to buy unused gift cards at less than their face value.