Stored value card popularity continues to grow in B2B markets, but gift card applications may help take it to another level.
Read: 3 Ways Gift Card Delivery Is Innovating
A gift card app can aggregate value from retailer and bank loyalty programs, as well as gift cards that have already been given to you.
How Gift Card Apps Could Change The Industry
We’ve all gotten gift cards to places we will never shop at, whether it’s from a family member or a well-meaning boss who doesn’t know you that well.
Rather than letting the value go to waste, there's now an app in India that allows you to aggregate unused gift card balances and also loyalty point programs.
The aggregate can be used as digital currency to buy gift cards you’d actually use, or that you can gift to others.
Want to learn more about the constantly evolving B2B gift card market?
Fighting Gift Card Fraud
From an industry perspective, this app could help combat rampant gift card fraud.
Gift card scams and larger-scale fraud cases have cropped up in US and international marketplaces due in large part to consumers not having a secure channel to put their unwanted or unused gift card values.
An app could create an opportunity for merchants to collaborate in a legal and productive manner to repurpose the unused value of their gift cards, while at the same time transacting in a secure way to keep fraudsters and scammers at bay.
For consumers, it’s a channel to:
- Extract value from gift cards they wouldn’t normally use. This is also an opportunity to garner intrinsic trophy value of gift cards that lasts beyond the moment the gift is given.
- Gift card apps would also allow consumers to use loyalty points from merchants, which individually consumers may not have enough points to create value, but together the consumer can actually gain value.
For merchants, it’s an opportunity to:
- Partner with other retailers to combat one of the biggest threats to the gift card industry; and
- Provide a legal and merchant-controlled secondary gift card market.
While this type of concept seems far off, a gift card app that aggregates value while mitigating fraud could be closer than you think.
Innovation in the gift card industry is constant, and a gift card app is a win-win for merchants and consumers alike.
In the market for name-brand gift cards? You can browse and buy them by visiting the GiftCard Partners website.
