GiftCard Partners Blog

The top three challenges Human Resources departments across America face right now are employee turnover, employee engagement, and succession planning. All three present interesting challenges, but can be overcome if HR leaders take on the challenges with creative solutions. Let’s take a look at how HR departments can change their views on these issues to ease concerns in the new year. Consider these three New Year’s resolutions from your HR department in 2016:

The holidays are rapidly approaching and we have the latest in shopping and holiday gift card trends for this season!

According to the National Retail Federation’s Holiday Consumer Spending Survey, consumers will spend an average of $805.65 on food, decorations, gifts, and more this holiday season, the highest amount in the survey’s 15-year history! Top findings of consumers surveyed showed:

The holiday shopping season is already here and we thought it would be helpful to show how to incorporate gift cards, the most popular gift for both consumers and B2B organizations, into your holiday strategy. Here are 3 ways to incorporate gift cards into your holiday program.

The National Retail Federation has announced that this holiday season, if all goes according to plan, spending on gift cards will break all previous records.
NRF predicts gift card spending will reach $31.74 billion, up 83% since gift card spending tracking began in 2003. What does this mean? It's simple. Gift cards are the perfect gift. They are easy for the giver, they are guaranteed to please the receiver, and the price is set. It fits the budget, and is easy. Could any holiday-shopping-crazed consumer ask for anything else? We don't think so either. The important thing to remember is that gift cards work for everyone. This means not just your friends and family, but anyone else you might need to give gifts too. Providing small gifts to employees at the end of the year is a great way to say thanks. It's a small act of appreciation. It could be as simple as giving them a gift to a
grocer to help curb the cost of their Thanksgiving or holiday dinner. So, as everything starts to get crazy later this week, with presents and decorations and wrapping paper, keep it simple and everyone will be happy.

This year holiday gift card spending on both plastic and digital gift cards will top all previous records with sales expecting to reach over $31 billion!  Gift cards have shed their reputation of being impersonal and have emerged as the perfect practical gift item for millions of holiday shoppers and are the most requested holiday gift for the 8th year in a row. Shoppers are expected to spend an average of $47.87 a card, up 6% over last year.  Since the
National Retail Federation began tracking customers holiday purchasing intentions in 2003, the total spend on gift cards has increased 83%. “Consumers young and old want to find the best way possible to create a happy holiday experience for their loved ones, and gift cards are a great option every time.”  Gift cards are a go-to gift for consumers of all ages; adults 65+ will spend the most on gift cards, while young adults will spend the least.  In addition, men will spend almost 10% more than women on gift card purchases. The following charts provide more insight into the 2014 NRF survey results, check out more
here.
About the Survey The NRF 2014 Gift Card Spending Survey was designed to gauge consumer behavior and shopping trends related to the winter holidays. The survey polled 6,593 consumers and was conducted for NRF by Prosper Insights & Analytics, November 3-10, 2014. The consumer poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points.