From Trader Joe’s best cheap, healthy snacks to their numerous meal options, wine, and more, a gift card to the store is a reliably great idea for anyone in your life. And who doesn’t appreciate the feeling of food-shopping with a gift card, which can have that fun, “Supermarket Sweep” feeling? There’s just one, not so tiny hitch to the otherwise foolproof TJ’s gift card idea, which is that the chain doesn’t sell them online. Physical gift cards can only be purchased in-person at Trader Joe’s locations. What gives?
The gift-card rule is one of the facts you should know if you’re a Trader Joe’s super-fan. It might seem inconvenient to not be able to hit “buy” and immediately have your gift ready to e-mail or print. But TJ’s sticks to physical gift cards as protection for its customers. Gift card fraud is big business in the United States, unfortunately. Gift cards are (usually) easily available online and don’t have the same protections as credit cards. Scammers can con people into providing the gift cards’ numbers. In 2021, the Federal Trade Commission found 40,000 people reported falling victim to this scam, losing a combined $148 million. They can also create and sell fake gift cards — in 2020, fraudulent Trader Joe’s gift cards were circulating online, prompting the store to respond with the reminder anything not physically purchased at one of their locations isn’t real.
How to buy Trader Joe’s gift cards and protect yourself against scams
The Trader Joe’s gift card policy is in and of itself protection against scams, so while it may require more of an errand than a quick click online, we can all appreciate the favor the chain is doing us. If it’s not a physical TJ’s card, it’s a fake. It’s as simple as that, and it’s easy for both store employees and customers to always immediately note the difference. Trader Joe’s has stated it has no plans to go high-tech in various ways, from no self-checkouts to having knowledgeable staff available for questions rather than TV screens throughout the store. Physical gift cards are yet another example. No gift cards online makes even more sense, too, when you remember Trader Joe’s doesn’t sell anything online — the experience is all in-person.
The good news is that there are 608 TJ’s locations across the United States, and while some states still don’t have any, the chain is still growing. California is getting five new Trader Joe’s locations in 2025, which follows an additional 34 new stores in different places in 2024. So, hopefully, it’s becoming easier to get to a store when we want to buy someone a gift card.
