GiftCard Partners Blog

The Citi Thank You Program is revolutionizing the use of rewards points. Imagine being able to share points with your friends to save up for a get-away weekend, or save up points with one friend for another friends' birthday present. Many people pool points for gift cards from retailers who partner with Citi to make their gift cards available through the Citi ThankYou program such as CVS/Pharmacy and Charming Shoppes stores. This allows consumers to use points for gift cards for themselves, or to use as gifts, giving the recipient of the gift a chance to choose their own gift. You could even pool points with friends and family to make a group contribution to a good cause. Well, now you can. The new Citi ThankYou Point Sharing App on Facebook allows groups of friends to pool points in order to redeem the value of the points for a bigger reward. This app is the beginning of a revolution in monetizing social media. This app is allowing users to move assets and share funds through Facebook, a social media platform. This app will soon promote itself, benefiting not just the Citi ThankYou Program, but its users and potential users as well. The more people use the Point Sharing App, the more people will post on Facebook about it, making the App and its use go viral across the platform. A rewards program that rewards itself, an incentive social media innovation.
For more information on the Citi ThankYou Points Sharing App check out the pymnts.com article.

The second and third quarters of 2012 included GCP’s visits to several meetings, conferences and events, including The Incentive Marketing Association (IMA) Conference, The Motivation Show, and the Employer Healthcare & Benefits Congress. Each meting contributed to our holistic and evolved strategy for how to approach our clients’ gift card programs in order to attract and market to incentive customers. What were some key findings, insights and trends from these forums?
The IRF and the IGC commissioned Aspect Market Research Group to size the B2B gift card marketplace (U.S. incentive/loyalty). The study included 369 surveys, compiled from company executives who manage incentive and loyalty programs that include gift cards, and it sought to answer the question: “What do U.S. businesses spend on gift cards every year?” They quantified the market as $2.7 billion which does not include Scrip and Third Party. We will share the entire study with you once it becomes available. Here are are a few highlights:

The first quarter of 2012 included GCP’s visits to many meetings, conferences and events, including the PrePaid Expo, the InComm Partner Alliance, the South Florida Success Expo (SWFL), and the Loyalty Expo. Each meeting contributed to our holistic and evolved strategy for how to approach our clients’ gift card programs in order to attract and market to incentive customers. What are some key findings, insights and trends from these forums?
- Retailergift card revenue from in-store sales was 52% of total gift card sales
- Gift card revenue from websites was 3% - Gift card revenue from B2B Sales was 17%. - Gift card revenue from 3rd Party Malls was 23% - Gift card revenue from Web Aggregators and Distributors was 6%
2012 started out very strong for the B2B portion of the gift card market, despite changes that occurred in debit card reward programs. As a result of the Durbin Amendment, financial institutions no longer offer rewards points for use of their debit cards, resulting in a marked down-turn in B2B gift card purchases for the loyalty program channel of gift cards. How are companies like GCP dealing with this, while increasing sales for our retailer and merchant clients? GCP is expanding the end user market for gift cards by micro-targeting workplace incentive decision makers in manufacturing, energy and utilities, healthcare, call centers and insurance companies. GCP has compiled many studies and much research for an eBook that we will publish in the coming months, and we look forward to sending it to you. This eBook is one part of our multi-touch approach to grow the end-user gift card market by educating and proliferating incentive program concepts. As credit card rewards programs “lose some luster”
ⁱ amongst consumers, GCP feels that the end-customer/employer segment is crucial to growing retailer and merchant gift card programs. Simply put, the end user market diversifies the portfolio of potential customers for B2B gift cards, and it’s working! GCP is happy to announce that B2B gift card sales are up in Q1 of 2012 against Q1 of last year.

Companies that prioritize employee well-being in 2025 are setting themselves apart by attracting and retaining top talent through innovative benefits like health and wellness programs. Offering a health and wellness program isn’t just a perk—it’s a strategic investment in your workforce that delivers measurable returns in productivity, employee satisfaction, and healthcare cost savings. With modern tools like the Engage2Reward™ Gift Card Ordering Platform, launching and maintaining an effective wellness initiative has never been easier.

Retail TouchPoints (RTP) is an excellent source for retail executives to stay apprised of insightful content around the latest in customer-facing technologies and the development of critical customer loyalty strategies to compete in today’s retail environment. In RTP’s
Top 20 Articles of 2011; they outline top 20 most viewed articles of last year and review the top trends across those most read stories. They noted that the majority of the most viewed articles were case studies with success stories from leading retailers, highlighting that “retail executives are looking to learn from their peers….two of the hot-button topics in 2011 were mobile technology and social commerce.” I hesitate to simply lead you to the list. First, I must note that the top article is
10 Innovative Solutions In The First Annual Next-Gen Retail Awards Report; an important composition of innovative solutions highlighted at the 2011 National Retail Federation (NRF) Annual Convention. The innovations profiled in the report included 10 categories like: social media; in-store marketing; inventory management; store intelligence; mobile technology; customer engagement; POS, and cross-channel. “In a challenging economy retailers are struggling to turn shoppers into brand advocates. With that in mind, customer loyalty was a hot topic in 2011.” Visit the full list of Top 20 Retail TouchPoints articles and you can also access the actual articles, insights, case studies and more to start your own innovative approaches.