GiftCard Partners Blog

Even though it is not yet Halloween financial analysts and retail experts are already working to predict holiday spending.  With an unstable economy and uncertain times ahead most shoppers will be keeping tight budgets, and not making extravagant purchases.  According to a recent Accenture survey "One quarter of shoppers (24 percent) plan to have a 'thrifty' holiday season and one in five (18 percent) admit that they will be 'focused on necessities', just 6 percent admit to planning 'extravagant' or 'unrestrained' holiday spending." In this type of market, where consumers are being conservative with their holiday budgets gift givers want to ensure that they give "targeted" gifts.  These are gifts where the givers' dollar is stretched and the giver is sure the receiver is going to use and enjoy the gift.  Gift cards are great examples of "targeted" gifts, they are meaningful, and guaranteed to be enjoyed.  Allowing a friend or employee to enjoy dinner with their family, or to splurge on a new outfit is a win/win; a low risk purchase for the giver and a high reward for the receiver. With 43% of survey respondents claiming that they have less income than last year, and historic economic swings, it is going to be a year of low risk gift purchases. Remember the value of gift cards as you make your holiday purchases this year, whether it be for your friends, or employees.  
For more information on the recent Accenture survey click here. 

You spoke and we listened. We’re gathering and publishing results of our 2011 Gift Card Usage Survey and we’ll be including success stories in each eNews. Health and Wellness Incentives Wellness incentives have become good business. They reduce health care costs for employers and increase employee productivity.  To enhance participation, rewards are given to employees for filling out HRA’s (Health Risk Assessments). HRA’s are used to assess the lifestyle risk behaviors of individuals as part of the annual Periodic Health Assessment, work-site wellness program, or other community health activities.  Health and Wellness Programs are measurable; rewards can be given via a points system or for participating in healthy activities like joining a gym, or for achieving healthful milestones like losing weight, decreasing blood pressure or taking daily walks during breaks. Here are a few ways that our survey respondents are using gift cards to engage, motivate and reward:

Your Scrip purchase decision makers use a wide variety of gift card brands for their participants. Whether they are fundraising or using gift cards for budgeting purposes; they want brands that they shop for on a regular basis. Here are the top 10 reasons why The Children's Place (TCP) is a perfect Scrip choice.

GiftCard Partners recently reported that the
2011 Gift Card IQ Survey reveals good news for retailers & merchants when it comes to “bigger” incentive gift card budgets. Retailers and merchants may be celebrating an increased use of gift cards when other consumer spending categories have slowed, but the Corporate Gift Card IQ Report also announces good news for employers who use gift cards as incentives and for those who wish to use them. Some interesting information was uncovered in Incentive's September report, which outlined the respondents' a couple personal questions and it revealed more data.

Within 9 weeks of Starbucks launching mobile payment apps,customers chose to pay with their phones over 3 million times, according to an eMarketer interview with Starbucks VP of Digital Ventures Adam Brotman.  The apps provide convenience and control for customers, and speeds up those dreaded lines at Starbucks on weekday mornings.  Customer use of the app increases steadily as time goes on.   But where are mobile payment systems going? The innovation has to keep evolving if it is going to maintain its popularity.  Starbucks has already added an egift card component to the app, meaning that one Starbucks customer can gift another customer with the app through the mobile system.  This is a computer free, cash free, and credit card free transaction that can happen anywhere.  Imagine being able to receive gifts anytime anywhere, whether it is birthday gifts, or a reward from an employer. Mobile payments also help retailers track in-store activity based on mobile coupons.  Brotman explains "In response to an ad campaign ran by adidas via Google’s AdMob where 10% discounts were offered Schultz said “they were able to track that in-store activity, they saw that the weekly redemption numbers were up 50 percent. You still have users who are willing to engage with commerce now. As consumers we don’t operate in silos and as marketers we should either. When we work with retailers, we try to figure out their strategies and how we can enable that – we look at consumer behavior.”   Convenience for consumers, additional metrics and tracking for retailers.  Get rid of your cash, and shred your credit cards, just make sure you have your smartphone.  
For more information on mobile payments click here.