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 New York Times reports on an interesting new shape for customer loyalty programs, and it’s not as simple as just maintaining, focusing on, or improving a loyalty program. This centers around GE Capital’s relationship with Kobie Marketing to unify shoppers’ profiles, to not just track purchases and create offers and rewards based on what is paid for on plastic, but also monitoring shoppers’ retail social media interactions. The New York Times article explains, “That means they can be monitored across any platforms they might use to interact with the company, like Facebook, Foursquare or an app, and their purchases can be integrated into that profile regardless of how they pay.” The article shows how, “Membership and loyalty programs have been a part of the retail landscape for years, but they have become increasingly important as retailers vie for customers both online and in their physical stores.” An example of the importance of such programs is Sears Holdings’ rewards program, “Shop Your Way”, accounted for 70% of their 3rd quarter 2013 sales
¹. Sears Holdings’ year end results
² may have been even more disappointing WITHOUT the strong boost their loyalty program offered them. Loyalty program evolution and growth is important to retailers and merchants who continually need new and innovative ways to engage with and retain customers. Click for more of the article GE Capital to help Set Up Loyalty Programs for Retailers. Sources: 1. TNYT: GE Capital to help Set Up Loyalty Programs for Retailers 2. TNYT: Sears’s Sales Fell 9.2% in Tepid Holiday Season

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.