News

Oct
14
2015

Happy International Print Day 2015!

International Print Day 2015, a 24-Hour Social Media Event, Emphasizes the Industry’s Love for and Dedication to Print and Paper.

THE PRINTERVERSE – Print professionals around the world are being encouraged to participate in International Print Day 2015 (IPD15), a global 24-hour event being held Wednesday, October 14, 2015, in which social media will be used to highlight the creativity, importance and power of print and paper.

The theme for this year’s International Print Day is “#PrintNOW.” Along with #IPD15, that hashtag has been designated for all print professionals to use when they share examples of print on social media such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube and others. Commercial printers, print buyers, paper mills, graphic designers, book publishers, marketers and manufacturers are urged to participate in this global sharing event.

“Produced a cool project recently? Used new paper or substrates? Share and tag it! Have new equipment? Wrapped a vehicle? Share and tag it! Designed something spectacular? Saw some spectacular print out in the world? Been to a great print event or tradeshow? Show everyone through pictures, videos and posts and share away!” exclaimed Deborah Corn, Principal at Print Media Centr, and founder of International Print Day.

Using the hashtags #IPD15 and #PrintNOW, print professionals and anyone associated with the printing industry are encouraged to flood social media channels with education, facts, and fun stuff related to print and paper. International Print Day 2014 resulted in 8,683 Tweets delivered to 23,023,968 timelines with 1,271 contributors. IPD 2015 organizers expect those numbers to be crushed this year.

“#PrintNOW encapsulates the state of the industry and all of the amazing advances in print, paper and marketing technology we are creating and implementing to help customers. #PrintNOW also serves as a call to action for marketing professionals – and even consumers – to include printed materials in their communications mix,” Corn added.

Companies are also encouraged to share information about their related products and services, though a strategic approach is always suggested. International Print Day 2015 is an amazing opportunity for everyone in the print, paper, design and marketing industry to tell the world how they bring value to their customers by sharing their print success stories.

Allied Printing (http://www.alliedprinting.com) created a #PrintNOW logo that can be downloaded from the International Print Day 2015 website. For that, the IPD15 logo and more information about International Print Day 2015, please visit http://www.internationalprintday.org

 

Source: WhatTheyThink?

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

TAGS:   Community, Education, trends

Oct
07
2015

How Gift Card Consumption has Evolved with eCommerce Growth in India

eCommerce is growing at an alarming pace in India and has been making remarkable impact all over the country. India is a billion people nation with web mobile penetration of over 60%. In the next couple of years, we can see that everyone will move online for business.

A majority of our population is very young, which exhibits energy to build and adopt anything new coming their way so a new retail format is expected to have a very fast adoption rate. With the advent of m-commerce, we can see a great opportunity being placed for mobile. It allows and encourages the consumers to browse quickly, easily and purchase products on-the-go, more regularly.

It’s a strong belief that the mobile growth and with the availability of cheaper data plans across telecom brands, digital will grow and the gifting industry in India will soon skip plastic to move towards adopting digital gift cards.

Gift cards are pre-paid cards that can be used to make payments. Such cards have a validity period, which can be replenished with funds and reused within the period. Gift Cards are different from gift vouchers, which are paper-based and can be used only once, while purchasing products. Unlike gift cards, gift vouchers do not allow any partial redemption, wherein balance funds can be carried over for further purchases.

Manufacturing gift cards involve costs of plastic, magnetic strips, and card readers, however, this is changing as consumer’s demand and large retailers are moving towards digital gift cards. Digital gift card is a simple replacement of the paper/plastic gift cards, with a code. The code will be verified and the value attached to it is deducted from the digital card.


As per the stats, earlier, digital gift cards contributed to 7%; recently it has gone up to 17%. We can see the rise in digital gift cards as the consumer preferences and demand is higher for brands and stores and also allows offering a variety of gifting options. Brands like Lifestyle, Flipkart, Dominos, Tanishq are said to experience a consistent demand round the year and largely, during the festival season.

Most precisely, we can see the gift cards / digital gift cards trend booming in the West. Indians are avoiding the hassle of chasing for suitable gifts for each occasion; hence opt for gift cards. This is significantly helping the modern retail in boosting such transactions during the festive season.

Transactions through gift cards are expected to increase from 50% to 80% during October-December. With the increase in demand for gift cards, we can see the change in the Indian consumers’ opinions and preferences. In addition to this, the retailers are too comfortable with the homecoming of the gifts card as the sales are aiming to increase the billing value for transactions paid through gift cards.

The online gifting space, like any other industry, has certain challenges to face. The assurance of same day or fix date delivery, for example, throws up logistical issues that any eCommerce company/s face in terms of manpower and delivery transport etc. Hence, it is imperative for any portals to come up with variety that surprises the buyer as well as the receiver of the gift. In the hectic schedules, a beautifully gift wrapped present can rejuvenate any relation or help maintain the existing ones. The demand for gifts is sure to continue stimulating the online gifting segment significantly.

Online and offline retailers now should collectively view gifting as an opportunity to reach out to their target consumers and promote their brands at almost no extra cost with the help of social media. This social gifting concept is widespread in foreign countries. Considering the digital growth in India, we can see that social gifting will soon be introduced.

Post m-commerce, social commerce will speed up and more people will be connected via social media websites. Retailers will have a major advantage as gifting will give them the chance to engage with its targeted consumers and get timely feedback.

 

Source: iamwire.com
Article by Firoz Khan, Co-founder and CEO, Gift Cards India

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

TAGS:   card manufacturing, card services, Global, trends

Sep
24
2015

2015 Gift Card Fulfillment Trends - Now Available!

CLICK HERE to view the entire Infographic

Travel Tags’ 2015 Gift Card Fulfillment Study observed the online gift card presence and fulfillment of 100+ merchants across 14 industries. A high-level infographic is now available for you to view. We hope you find it valuable information as you develop and review your own gift card fulfillment. We encourage you to schedule a FREE consultation session to review your current fulfillment program and develop ideas on how to increase Giftability and decrease lost-in-mail rate.

To truly garner the most from this study, we encourage you to conduct a self-audit with the help of Travel Tags’ Design Team. Contact your Travel Tag Sales Representative to discuss opportunities on delivering the best every single time.

For a look at YOY data and product images, WATCH THE WEBINAR.

For a comprehensive look at the research method and results, REQUEST THE WHITE PAPER.

 

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

TAGS:   card fulfillment, card services, holidays, trends