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Tassi, the policy of not allowing store credit to be exchanged for gift cards is an industry standard.
For many stores, Store Credit is "merchandise equivalent", while gift cards are "cash equivalent". They're important from an accounting point of view. Also, many stores have different policies with the expiration of gift cards as opposed to store credit.
More importantly, however, Store Credit has a significance to loss prevention. A decent amount of theft is actually theft of easily stolen product, which is then returned to that store, or a different one in the chain, for store credit, which is then used to buy something that is easier to resell. Imagine someone stealing lousy DVDs that the store left out of keepers due to their cheapness and lousiness. Then, return a few dozen of them, and return it for store credit, and then a few days later buy an iPod. It happens all the time... Thus, it is important to be able to track store credit purchases. Thieves often want to make this more difficult by lengthening the trail. (And this happens even with receipts sometimes, as a thief can easily find a receipt on the floor, go find what's on the receipt, and then later return it... they're crafty, those thieves)
So don't expect to be able to exchange store credit for a gift card at any retail store you go to. Some may allow it, but it's very common not to, for the above reasons (and quite possibly others as well, I don't work that high up to know all of the accounting type issues).
For many stores, Store Credit is "merchandise equivalent", while gift cards are "cash equivalent". They're important from an accounting point of view. Also, many stores have different policies with the expiration of gift cards as opposed to store credit.
More importantly, however, Store Credit has a significance to loss prevention. A decent amount of theft is actually theft of easily stolen product, which is then returned to that store, or a different one in the chain, for store credit, which is then used to buy something that is easier to resell. Imagine someone stealing lousy DVDs that the store left out of keepers due to their cheapness and lousiness. Then, return a few dozen of them, and return it for store credit, and then a few days later buy an iPod. It happens all the time... Thus, it is important to be able to track store credit purchases. Thieves often want to make this more difficult by lengthening the trail. (And this happens even with receipts sometimes, as a thief can easily find a receipt on the floor, go find what's on the receipt, and then later return it... they're crafty, those thieves)
So don't expect to be able to exchange store credit for a gift card at any retail store you go to. Some may allow it, but it's very common not to, for the above reasons (and quite possibly others as well, I don't work that high up to know all of the accounting type issues).
Other than thanksgiving/christmas specials, or discontinued models, this would surprise me greatly ... though I suppose I am not in the market for this sort of thing very often. However, it was my understanding that the walmart ad on TV right now is pretty much targeting Best Buy ...
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