“It’s so-and-so’s birthday,” Facebook alerts you daily, “send them a gift.” For years, Facebook has been trying to encourage an atmosphere of gift-giving around birthdays and holidays, moving last year from useless virtual gifts (which were little more than clip-art pictures of teddy bears, birthday cakes, and even bars of soap) to a gift shop that actually sold both brand-name gift cards and physical gifts like stuffed animals and flower bouquets. According to a report from CNET, the social media site is now discontinuing the physical items, choosing to focus instead on the immediacy of gift cards.

According to Facebook, the physical gifts had a niche audience anyway. The site’s gift shop launched in December, and since then, some 80 percent of purchases  have been for gift cards. Since most audiences prefer the gift card experience anyway, Facebook has opted to ditch the physical gifts aspect of their birthday/holiday business – as well as the the shipping and storage that such physical items entail – and to direct its energies instead to forming a more comprehensive base of retailers and restaurants among the gift card offerings.

Part of the reason for the cutback is that, despite Facebook’s repeated attempts to encourage users to buy gifts for their friends, the company’s e-commerce revenues are still fairly minimal. This move away from physical items more or less offers proof that Facebook doesn’t have interest in becoming a major e-commerce player. Rather, the company seems content to offer quick and easy gifts for last-minute shoppers and for those that tend to forget birthdays or anniversaries.

Some users will inevitably miss the novelty of sending a mug or a box of cupcakes to a friend, but for Facebook users who preferred gift cards anyway, the company’s shift in focus will be good news. Not only will the decision likely bring more brands into the Facebook fold, it will also allow buyers to choose different gift card amounts – an improvement over the old, one-denomination-fits-all approach.

So when can you expect to see the new gift shop? According to Facebook spokespeople, the company is in the process of switching everyone over. As is often the case with Facebook updates, the new gift shop was opened up for roughly 10 percent of users yesterday, and will continue to spread to the rest of the user base throughout the next week.

If Facebook’s stock offers any indication, no one was terribly upset about the news: the company finished Friday trading with an all-time high share price of $40.55.