GiftCard Partners Blog

Incentive Magazine gathered professionals from across the motivation, recognition, travel, and rewards spectrum to come together for a discussion on the state of the incentive industry. Corporate gift cards, or, gift cards used in the corporate environment portion of the B2B marketplace was a hot topic! In their interview,
Incentive
Magazine posed the question, “How is the gift card market doing?,” the panel had some interesting views on corporate gift card use.

The Prepaid Expo tells us in the form of this infographic. We know our retailer and merchant gift card clients struggle with many of these challenges. There are additional challenges for those, like our clients, who are selling their prepaid products in the B2B market, and GCP supports and guides them through these challenges and those that will crop up. What % of these strategies and challenges are you dealing with?

The first quarter of 2012 included GCP’s visits to and participation in many meetings, conferences and events, including the PrePaid
Expo, the InComm Partner Alliance, the South Florida Success Expo (SWFL), and the Loyalty Expo. In Q1’s trend report, we captured a pulse on 2011 B2B gift card sales results, key gift card market expansion trends for 2012, and an update on the effects of New Jersey’s gift card laws to our industry.
Read the full B2B Gift Card Trend Report here.      

American Express has taken a landmark step in their fight to oppose the New Jersey law that would allow the state to claim unused gift card balances after two years. A recent National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast discussed Amex’s gift card product pull from shelves, and also noted Blackhawk’s threat to pull their 3
^rd party gift and prepaid cards. InComm, the other major 3rd party gift card play is also planning to follow suit.
Listen to NPR's Morning Edition interview.

The second and third quarters of 2012 included GCP’s visits to several meetings, conferences and events, including The Incentive Marketing Association (IMA) Conference, The Motivation Show, and the Employer Healthcare & Benefits Congress. Each meting contributed to our holistic and evolved strategy for how to approach our clients’ gift card programs in order to attract and market to incentive customers. What were some key findings, insights and trends from these forums?
The IRF and the IGC commissioned Aspect Market Research Group to size the B2B gift card marketplace (U.S. incentive/loyalty). The study included 369 surveys, compiled from company executives who manage incentive and loyalty programs that include gift cards, and it sought to answer the question: “What do U.S. businesses spend on gift cards every year?” They quantified the market as $2.7 billion which does not include Scrip and Third Party. We will share the entire study with you once it becomes available. Here are are a few highlights: