Abstract: To provide the theoretical support to the decisions made in the wide-spread promotion by sending shopping cards, it is studied preliminarily. Defining some key parameters, such as card's par value and card sending/receiving ratio, the concepts of card's value coefficient, lower-bound value coefficient and depreciation coefficient are proposed with the card's value and the lower-bound value calculated. The reasonable price scope of selling and purchasing shopping cards is thus derived for the firms which will launch the promotion by sending shopping cards during holidays. Different schemes for single purchase in the typical promotion by sending cards are analyzed. A conclusion is drawn that if the prices are reasonable, purchasing a shopping card first for purchasing goods is preferable to paying cash. Moreover, the proposed concepts and formulate could be applied to the analysis of more complex promotion activities by sending shopping cards.