GiftCard Partners Blog

In our constant efforts to stay apprised of up and coming gift card technologies, GiftCard Partners recently investigated which of the Top 50 Retailers(1) are accepting gift cards as payment online. We found that over half of the Top 50 retailers do. Among those that don’t, they are primarily restaurants or drugstores. Getting in touch with your gift card e-retail side is now more important than ever. Wide-spread broad-band across America has contributed to an increase of internet users, from 55% to a whopping 84% in the last 10 years(2). Not only will adopting online gift card redemption enhance customer convenience, increase sales, and amplify loyalty; it is also a foray into the mobile internet realm, which is predicted to overtake desktop internet usage by 2013(3). No matter the size of your business, not accepting online gift card redemption is a missed opportunity to engage with customers via their potential preferred researching and buying method. Other opportunities include: * Decrease  in breakage (if they are in your breakage #’s they are lost customers)

Daily deal sites are increasingly popular with consumers across the country, however they are posing increasing problems with the retailers who offer these "too good to be true" deals.  Be careful how your company interacts with daily deal sites so they attract more customers, and don't cost your business too much potential revenue.  For example, if you give gift cards away at a discount is that too much free money? Here are some tips to success in the daily deal arena:

This post might look familiar to you; we've added an update further down the page. Wikipedia outlines a “Virtual Wallet” as a hybrid checking/savings account with 3 components: a "Spend" account (checking), a "Reserve" account (backup checking, incurs interest), and a"Growth" account (savings). This is a pretty narrow view of a virtual wallet (note to self, update Wikipedia). Virtual wallets are cropping up not just from banks for online banking; they are being offered by credit card companies, SmartPhone providers, and there are even free versions that stores, manages, and organizes digital versions of store membership cards, coupons, loyalty cards, virtual gift cards, or any other piece of information that you store in your traditional wallet. Windows even offers a PC software version of a virtual wallet, but it’s more focused on protecting all those passwords, account numbers, and access codes vs. making purchases and using your loyalty rewards points or gift cards.
GiftCard Partners feels the Virtual Wallet that will not only change our way of shopping, paying, and redeeming, but will also combine the best of the above types and allow us to:

The GCP staff is excited for all the insights, collaboration and networking to be had at the upcoming 12^th annual IMA Executive Summit 2011, August 7-9. The theme: Learn, Connect, Benchmark and Deb Merkin, Ed Shulkin, Melina Balboni and Diane Freeland will be on-hand at the event.

My father-in-law just turned 80! What did we give him for his birthday? An iPhone…well, pretty much...it’s complicated. Turns out you can’t buy a phone for someone due to contracts, phone number transitions, etc. So we printed a picture of an iPhone and gave him gift cards to buy his phone. What’s my point? He is 80 and he still loves his gadgets. Now, Dads love their gadgets within gadgets, like virtual and mobile gift cards.  “Most Dads love their gadgets and now family members can give unique virtual or mobile gift cards with personalized messages that stay with them on their mobile device,” said Doug Schneider, CEO, Transaction Wireless. “Social gifting is gaining in popularity and Facebook postings give loved ones a public forum to express their feelings and appreciation for dad.” Employers can embrace holidays like Father’s Day and make a Dad feel special with spot rewards and gifting virtual and mobile gift cards. High performance, corporate recognition, safety, sales motivation and achievements…there are many ways to commemorate your employees’ fatherhood.