Archive for 2012

e-Gift Cards: A Growing Trend

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Move over plastic, electronic gift cards are moving up! With more and more consumers relying on mobile technology and adopting that “need it now” mentality, e-gift cards are beginning to make a name for themselves in the gift card world. While they only account for 4% of overall annual gift card sales, nearly 20% of [...]

The Future of Employee Rewards – Gift Cards

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

Despite its fairly recent introduction into the gifting and incentive industry, gift cards have risen quickly over the last decade to become one of the most favored reward options—atop cash and merchandise, according to a study by Incentive Gift Card Council. Recipients prefer gift card rewards due to the freedom of personalized usage, the thoughtfulness [...]

2011 Consumer Insights Study

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

There’s no doubt that gift cards have become increasingly popular in the past decade.  First Data is in the process of releasing two white papers making up the “2011 U.S. Prepaid Consumers Insights Study.”  The first of these two white papers was released last week and is focused on the gift card industry.  Highlights of [...]

The Number One Reason To Save Your Used Gift Card

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Now that the holidays are over and you’ve spent the last of your gift cards, don’t throw away that plastic just yet. Many merchants offer the ability to reload your gift cards and consumers are taking advantage of this feature more than ever. According to First Data Corporation, consumers continued to reload closed loop gift [...]

Gift Cards on the Rise

Monday, January 9th, 2012

 According to a recent study by The International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs, gift card spending rose to nearly 18% of total holiday spending in 2011, the highest percentage since 2006 and up from 14.6% last year and 13.1% in 2009.  This is good news – not only for large retailers,  but even [...]