GiftCard Partners Blog

We wrote last week about the Innovation Project held at Harvard late last week. The Innovation Project brings together the innovating leaders in the payments and commerce space for a summit that is packed with content and collaboration. Now, we don't like to brag, but our COO was on the winning team for the second straight year. She didn't do it alone however, her team brought together innovative leaders from across the industry. The winning team was a collaborative effort between

The All Payments Expo
(APEX) is already in full swing this morning in Las Vegas and the GiftCard Partners team is looking forward to taking part in the discussions, collaboration, and merging of minds throughout the payments industry this week. The APEX allows a forum for Alternative Financial Services, Emerging Payments, Omnichannel Retail Strategies and Prepaid to come together to focus on areas of growth and convergence in payments. GCP was excited about the opportunity to sponsor a unique luncheon and joint session between
Retail Gift Card Association (RGCA) and
Incentive Gift Card Council (IGCC), of which we are members of both. The IGCC
stated, “Both associations share goals in promoting best practices and helping the industry grow and believe collaborating on the topic of B2B will create a powerful learning opportunity and one that will eliminate redundancy and streamline our message between groups.” Let the collaborations begin!

We are two weeks away from the 2014 All Payments Expo that will take place at The Mirage in Las Vegas this year. As regular attendees of the event, the GiftCard Partners team is looking forward to seeing both new and returning faces in the payments industry and speaking with new loyalty, incentive and payment companies who can use gift cards as part of their reward complement. The APEX brings together Alternative Financial Services, Emerging Payments, Omnichannel Retail Strategies and Prepaid all in one location to focus on areas of growth and convergence in payments. Check out more on the APEX
here.

Google announced earlier this month that as of August 21st it would suspend support on Google Wallet for gift cards and loyalty cards (often utlizing point systems). This seems like it could be a blow to the gift card industry, like for those who sell bulk gift cards, as it limits the ways gift cards can be distributed and redeemed. However I am scratching my head to figure out if we, the gift card industry should even care that much.

Since gift cards are given as gifts, incentives and employee rewards, they are often thought of by retailers and merchants as a customer acquisition tool. Let’s say a customer doesn’t shop at a particular retailer or merchant often or at all. Yet a family member, friend or employer gives a particular brand based on it meshing well with the recipients’ needs. This gift card now becomes a new customer acquisition tool or a customer loyalty tool for the retailer. BUT, are retailers also thinking of their own gift cards as a tool to lower operating costs? When your customers use debit and credit cards for their purchases, the burden of the transaction fees falls on that retailer. There are no fees when your customers utilize their closed-loop gift cards in your own name. The impressive numbers add up when you think of the difference your gift cards can make when selling them by the hundreds and thousands in the B2B market. GiftCard Partners’s customers buy multi-millions of dollars in face value gift cards annually across all our retail brands. Those are all consumers using your gift cards versus credit or debit payment card options that rack up fees charged to you. Check out
First Data’s Perspective: The Evolution of Gift Card Strategy to see how retailers and merchants are re-evaluating their cost of payment acceptance at their POS locations.