Idea #1: You need to ask yourself why people buy gift cards in the first place. They buy them as gifts for other people, gifts to be given at a later date. Instant gratification is far less of a factor when it comes to gift-giving, which is inherently non-instant. The only reason anyone would ever need to print off a gift card would be if they totally forgot the need for it, with like 15 minutes to spare. While that may seem like a niche you can fill, it probably isn't. There are formal-ish standards for gift-giving, and the appearance of forgetting till the last minute is always, always, always avoided; the implication being that you didn't care enough about the recipient to remember to get the gift ahead of time.
Go for #2, and play around with the idea some more.