Home don't insert thumbnail Forget Pokemon. Fifteen year-old Lachy Groom created his business swapping ‘gift cards’.

Forget Pokemon. Fifteen year-old Lachy Groom created his business swapping ‘gift cards’.

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Age has never been a restriction when it comes to entrepreneurship and that certainly rings true in the case of Perth entrepreneur Lachy Groom.

At only 15 years old, Groom is onto his second business Cardnap.com.au which was launched in March this year. His first business, an online design company, was successfully sold to an American buyer.

Cardnap

Cardnap is an online business offering customers the chance to trade in their unused Australian gift vouchers for cash or store credit at any of their associated stores at a discounted rate. The site supports more than 45 stores including Westfield, David Jones, Myer and Woolworths.

Recognising that an opportunity lay in the fact that, according to the Australian Consumers’ Association (now known as Choice), one in three Australian gift card vouchers expires before being used, Groom is capitalising on the potential of this surplus of unused credit.

Shoppers can enter their voucher details on the Cardnap website and receive an instant cash quote which is paid via online banking or PayPal. If the customer prefers to trade their unused voucher for another gift card, they can send it to Cardnap to be validated and have their new voucher sent to them free of charge anywhere in Australia.

Cardnap also offers customers the option to donate either part of full value of their gift cards to the charity Kids Under Cover.

At a time in adolescence when many teenagers are obsessing over swap cards, it would appear that Groom’s attention and ambition have already moved way beyond Pokemon.