GiftCard Partners Blog

The Affordable Care Act is here, and even though 
most open enrollment periods are now over for the year, there is still time to improve your employee health and lower future health care costs. Implementing health and wellness programs can both lower health care costs for employers, and place accountability on employees for their own health. Chad Koerten, who works for KI Furniture near Green Bay, WI has credited his organization with an 80 lb. weight loss over his 15 years with the company.

The popularity of the gift card is on its way up. With the development of mainstream mobile payment systems, digital or egifting has gained popularity. Egifting reached a 4 billion dollar level in 2013, that's eight times higher than in 2012. With the convenience of one online check-out to make both purchase and delivery, the convenience factor of egifting along with the overall popularity of gift cards have created the perfect gift for consumers' busy schedules. With U.S. gift card consumption reaching levels higher than the GDP of 136 countries, there is plenty of gift card spending to go around and egifting continues to gain a higher percentage of spending.
For more gift card trends and facts check out this infographic from CEB Tower Group.

Most companies' biggest "cost" is personnel. Manpower is expensive to the organization and the workers always feel they could be making more money. Employees that are less satisfied with their jobs are less helpful to the end consumer, who then spends less with the organization. Keeping your workforce happy is correlated to your profit margins. Offering employees incentives is a great way to set guidelines for employees to work for certain incentive rewards. Based on what behavior is fulfilled incentives can range from a small denomination gift card to a popular retailer such as
The Cheesecake Factory, to a paid vacation, or extra time off. Keeping your employees happy will keep your company healthy.
For more information on why keeping your employees happy can help cover your profit margins check out this article from the New York Times.

It is great in today's business environment to see a large national brand sticking to its roots, what made it successful. Whole Foods is doing just that with its Local Producer Loan Program.

Gift cards were at the top of shoppers' lists again in 2013, and while we are still waiting on total evaluation of the 2013 holiday season there are some stand-out data points from NRF's initial holiday survey in October. Gift card spending was up again, with consumers averaging $45.16 per card, up from $43.75 last year. Men were forecast to be bigger spenders  than women, averaging $171.35 vs. $155.42 respectively. Gift cards' continued popularity lies in the 43.1% of consumers who think it is more meaningful to allow the gift recipient to choose their own gift. 25.3% of consumers still find gift cards too impersonal, but the former group hold the largest share of the buying power. Gift card popularity looks to be a big part of the holiday mix, and doesn't seem to be at risk of losing popularity in 2014.
For more information on gift cards' holiday popularity check out this article from the NRF.