ELC gift cards won't do nicely at Mothercare

It has much to commend it, especially its exemplary use of franchising to leverage its business around the world at a cracking rate, which is more than offsetting any slowdown it is experiencing in the domestic market.

It has also made much noise about its seamless multi-channel strategy that encompasses stores, online and catalogues. However, its acquisition of Early Learning Centre may have resulted in some less than seamless aspects emerging.

Attempting to redeem an ELC gift card within a Mothercare store that contained an ELC shop-in-shop last week failed because these cards are apparently only accepted in ELC standalone stores. Why? ELC is now wholly-owned by Mothercare so surely there should be no problem with accepting them.

I'm assuming that this is not so much a failure by Mothercare to integrate the ELC business as a failure of the gift cards. They have obviously caused such a headache with the software at the tills that it does not warrant making the necessary changes in order to accept them.

If this is the case then it supports my belief that there are more negatives than positives with these cards. If not, then the halo above the head of Mothercare's chief executive Ben Gordon has just slipped slightly in my opinion.