News

Jan
07
2016

Apps to help you organize and use your gift cards

 

Cathy Kamimura is an extreme user of gift cards. She currently has about 100 valued at more than $2,000. 

 

Managing them all is not just unwieldy, it is also risky since gift cards are like cash and cannot be replaced if they are stolen.

Gift cards, which become more popular by the year, have long been a challenge to consumers who leave them in drawers, lose track of their value or just never get around to using them.

At least $500 million of the estimated $130 billion worth of U.S. gift cards sold this year will go unused, consulting firm CEB TowerGroup said.

Kamimura, a 53-year-old stay-at-home mother from San Gabriel, California, found an app called Slide that let her consolidate that pile of plastic into an easy-to-use tool for her smartphone.

"It has made my life so much easier," Kamimura says. "My gift card carrier was so big, and I feel much safer."

Gift card organizing apps make things simpler by consolidating cards to single place that displays their value and allow them to be spent. The apps generate a bar code for cashiers to scan and draw down the value of the card.

The apps, which are free, make their money by taking a percentage of the gift cards they sell. They allow users to enter their cards manually, by scanning or a combination of the two.

The biggest player in this market is Gyft, while others like Slide, GoWallet and eGifter are expanding offerings.

The bulk of the overall gift card market is dominated by physical, plastic gift cards, says Gyft co-founder CJ MacDonald. By contrast, e-gifting (when you email a gift card from a retailer like Amazon.com) has only about a 5.5 percent share.

Read entire article at Reuters.com.
Written by Mitch Lipka, a Reuters contributor

 

MEDIA CONTACT:
KATY LASEE | MARKETING DEPT.
651 554 8533
KRLasee@traveltags.com

TAGS:   card services, trends

Jan
08
2016

How loyalty programs can earn more customers and offer true rewards

It wasn’t too long ago when some supermarkets began ditching their loyalty cards altogether. Albertsons stores, for example, announced “card free savings” in 2013, notifying customers they no longer need the company’s Preferred Card to receive sale prices on items. Other grocery chains have instead adapted loyalty programs with improved mobile technology and customized rewards options.

Customers still want to save money when they buy groceries. And, they like the idea of getting special treatment for their loyalty to a company. In fact, loyalty card membership has increased by 26% in two years, from 2.6 billion total U.S. loyalty program members in 2012 to 2.3 billion in 2014, according to a COLLOQUY report, Customer Loyalty in 2015 & Beyond.

Too often, however, loyalty card memberships have become a burden rather than a perk. Most customers realize supermarkets use the loyalty programs to build a database of consumer purchase information. And, they’re willing to part with some degree of personal information to become a member, but what’s in it for them? While the number of loyalty program memberships has increased significantly, the number of “active” members has declined. “Our Census revealed a stagnant market in which more than half of members (58%) don’t even bother to participate, much less become engaged and enthusiastic members,” reported Jeff Berry, research director for COLLOQUY.

So what works? What do customers really want out of their loyalty programs, and how are supermarkets and other grocery retailers revamping their programs to make them more relevant and engaging?

Read entire article at SmartBlog on Food & Beverage
Written by Heather Henstock

 

MEDIA CONTACT:
KATY LASEE | MARKETING DEPT.
651 554 8533
KRLasee@traveltags.com

TAGS:   Loyalty, Rewards and Membership, trends

Jan
11
2016

2015 gift card sales in the U.S. reach $130 billion, a 6% increase over 2014

2015 gift cards sales are just the beginning as gift card sales are predicted to reach $160 billion by 2018. E-gifting had the largest increase, rising to 26% in 2015, representing $7.1 billion in volume. E-gifting is also expected to support the overall payment industry growth. Long-term prospects for e-gifting remain promising as more payment services become mainstream and plastic cards make the switch to digital.

 

“Consumers continue to enjoy the convenience of giving and receiving gift cards in all forms,” said CEB Principal Executive Advisor Brian Riley.  “Both retailers and financial institutions have prioritized gift cards as a central to their strategies for gaining share of customers’ (increasingly digital) wallets.”

The amount of breakage (spillage), also known as unused gift card volume, continued to significantly decline, resulting in less than 1% of total volume. Regulatory action (Credit CARD act) has tightened rules on retailers, making it more difficult for stores to cancel unused cards or charge inactivity fees. This helps to prevent retailers from quickly cashing in on breakage. Customers have also caught on and appear to be finding more ways to avoid breakage. Even if there is only a small amount left on a gift card the consumers are finding a way to use them. But there is still a positive for retailers, as this usually means more lift (the amount that the customer spends over the value of the gift card)!

OTHER KEY FINDINGS:
•Open network branded cards grew to $48 billion (up 6.7%)
•Retailer cards grew to $43 billion (up 4.9%)
•The restaurant and miscellaneous categories both showed limited growth with $19 billion and $13 billion, respectively.

Read the full press release from CEB Global, here.

Read entire article at GiftCardPartners.com
Written by Jennifer DiPietro

 

MEDIA CONTACT:
KATY LASEE | MARKETING DEPT.
651 554 8533
KRLasee@traveltags.com

TAGS:   card manufacturing, holidays, trends