GiftCard Partners Blog

This post might look familiar to you; we've added an update further down the page. Wikipedia outlines a “Virtual Wallet” as a hybrid checking/savings account with 3 components: a "Spend" account (checking), a "Reserve" account (backup checking, incurs interest), and a"Growth" account (savings). This is a pretty narrow view of a virtual wallet (note to self, update Wikipedia).

Virtual wallets are cropping up not just from banks for online banking; they are being offered by credit card companies, SmartPhone providers, and there are even free versions that stores, manages, and organizes digital versions of store membership cards, coupons, loyalty cards, virtual gift cards, or any other piece of information that you store in your traditional wallet. Windows even offers a PC software version of a virtual wallet, but it’s more focused on protecting all those passwords, account numbers, and access codes vs. making purchases and using your loyalty rewards points or gift cards.

GiftCard Partners feels the Virtual Wallet that will not only change our way of shopping, paying, and redeeming, but will also combine the best of the above types and allow us to:

The GCP staff is excited for all the insights, collaboration and networking to be had at the upcoming 12^th annual IMA Executive Summit 2011, August 7-9. The theme: Learn, Connect, Benchmark and Deb Merkin, Ed Shulkin, Melina Balboni and Diane Freeland will be on-hand at the event.

To follow up on last week's article on Google's announcement of their forthcoming mobile wallet app, we thought we would provide information on who is excited and confident in a virtual wallet system, and who still holds some reservations regarding the technology.  62% of all cell-phone users are willing to use mobile wallet as a payment system, when it becomes available this fall.  63% of 18-34 year olds are ready for virtual wallet availability, while a mere 37% of over 35 year olds feel confident in the system.  Also, not surprisingly, 62% of people surveyed said they would need solid confirmation that their financial information was secure before they would feel comfortable using their cell phones for payment. Mobile wallet is coming, and enough consumers are ready to use the technology that it will definitely change payment and promotional strategies for major retail companies.  Near Field Communication will allow for geographic based promotions, and the line between an online and offline customer is sure to be blurred. For more information on the
demographic break-down on mobile wallet confidence, click here.

Designed to keep our clients informed of the evolving B2B gift card landscape The third quarter of this year brought GiftCard Partners’ sales and marketing teams to a hugely successful Motivation Show (MoShow) in Chicago as well as a very productive IMA (Incentive Marketing Association) meeting in San Diego. We are pleased to keep you current in the events that are shaping the gift card industry as well as provide you with insights into hot topics and themes that affect your role in the retail industry.

At GiftCard Partners, we follow gift card technology closely and we’ve been doing some trend reporting on e-Gift cards (aka eCerts & virtual gift cards), mobile Gift cards (aka mCerts), and their place in
virtual wallets (see last week’s post:
Virtual Wallets: What are they…Really?). These technologies affect our clients (retailers) as they navigate through their adoption of technology across their retail locations, ecommerce sites, and in their B2B or bulk gift card business. It also affects our customers, as they receive their cards and deliver them to their end user differently. The end users, who receive the cards as part of workplace incentive programs or loyalty rewards, receive their cards fast and can use them with optimal convenience.  Here, let’s take notice of yet another party that benefits from this technology…Mother Earth. In E-Gift Cards Pushing Out Plastic Credit, Earth911 highlights that implementing e-Gift card technology reduces the industry’s carbon footprint and “spares natural resources by offering retail credit via online delivery”. Decomposition resistant plastic card resins, laminates, inks & dyes combined with packaging and fuel for shipping…all are eliminated by technologists and the retail industries’ movement to Go Green with gift cards. Also consider that gift cards are just a tiny slice of the overall plastic and paper pie, if you add up all the payment methods that could eventually reside in a virtual wallet. Although consumer purchased gift cards were the first to go “e”, we are also seeing a strong migration in the more complicated to fulfill and distribute, B2B market. More than ½ of our clients already offer technology based gift cards and another ¼ of them are in the process now. As more retailers adopt non-plastic gift card methods, companies like
CashStarTM,
RevTrax® and
Transaction WirelessTM lead the way to provide critical pieces to make B2B bulk corporate gift cards widely available. Until our wallets are all virtual, encourage your cards’ recipients to recycle their used gift cards here:

Visit Alison Neumer Lara's Earth911 article.