Are your iTunes gifts arriving?

Everyone knows about conventional giftcards and how they provide windfall profits for retailers. So what about undelivered iTunes gift songs and gift cards? In an electronics-only world, does it really matter to a retailer whether they get used or not?

TUAW reader Lawrence Harvey pointed us to this article over at SimpleTechnology. The writers decided to test whether gifts were making it to their recipients. Of the twenty gift tracks they sent out, they experienced no less than a 25% failure-to-receive rate. 5 out of the 20 songs never made it to their intended recipient, without any feedback from Apple about the failed deliveries.

Retailers obviously do not have a responsibility to ensure that electronic gifts are used, but it seems to us that Apple might be a little more proactive about sending out reminders of unused gift credits. It would create goodwill at very little cost to the company.