27 July 2022
Are you wondering if you should implement a gift card into your company’s retail or rewards system? In this article we’re going to show you how rewarding this could be for your business, and how consumer forecasts have the market increasing per year for the next decade; a sure sign that this is not a gift horse you want to look in the mouth.
There are many reasons why implementing a gift card system into your business is a great idea. No matter your business or the sector you are in, you can still implement gift cards that might reward your employees or encourage new customers to purchase more from your business. Gift card users will often spend more than the gift card has on it, they may also never get round to spending any of the amount – or only part of it – which leads to credit spillage for your company. ‘Credit Spillage‘ is a term used to describe when money on a gift card hasn’t been used and the card expires, leaving the money unspent and in your business without losing any of your inventory.
Out of 2000 participants in a 2021 questionnaire, 87% said that they had purchased an online gift card. Online gift cards are a great way to give consumers a flexible and easy-to-access purchase considering 47% of gift recipients would rather have a gift card than a gift, be this an e-card or a physical gift card. 48% of online retailers currently accept gift cards and digital gift card adoption is forecasted to increase at 23% by 2025 and over the next 10 years (2021 to 2031) the market is supposed to expand annually by 12%. The US gift card market was forecast to reach $170.78 in 2021; globally in 2020 the industry was worth $295.2 billion.
So why a gift card?
Well, 33% of consumers will spend more on a gift card than a physical gift. Gift cards are the get-out-of-jail-free card (excuse the pun) for many of us well-wishing friends and family members when Holidays or Birthdays come around. They’re also a great alternative for employers to give hard-working team members or those who meet their targets. Find out how rewards help your employees to enjoy their time at work and reach their targets in this article.
But how do you sell a gift card?
In 2020 46% of US gift card purchases were made over social media. This is a huge percentage which shows the power of social commerce (click here to read our article on the power of selling over social media platforms in our article Buy What You Like: Social Commerce) and the popularity which buying over such platforms holds for consumers. The gifting budget which a consumer is willing to spend on a gift card is 55% – as we mentioned earlier, they’re also likely to spend more on a gift card than a physical gift.
Selling a gift card to a consumer requires making it appeal as a gift in itself. This means you want beautiful packaging, the ability to customize the message in a blank window or envelope, and something that will make it more than a piece of card or a QR code. The PAKs we collaborated on with Amazon had a range of designs both for the festive season and all year round, we added our renowned engineering capabilities and a little sprinkle of our usual bespoke design to make something a little bit different.
If your company would like to launch a gift card that optimizes your product sales and encourages customer retention, get in touch with the team at BPAK today.
