GiftCard Partners Blog

At GiftCard Partners, we have been working hard to help gift card brands navigate the complicated eGifting technology landscape in their journey to offer eGift Cards. We've found that even though retailers accept that they will find new incremental gift card sales with early adoption, they have not rushed to do so. Forbes.com reports 70% of the retailers, recently evaluated in a CashStar study, now offer digital or “eGift cards”. This is up from 60% in 2011 and 40% in 2010. This is good news for consumers as we rely more and more on technology to organize our lives, but for retailers looking to offer eGift cards in the B2B marketplace; technology is a bit more complicated. But let’s get back to the important questions retailers ask themselves of their gift card program when preparing to go digital…”should we offer eGift cards yet?” Or “should we be early adopters or should we wait for other retailers to figure it out”? Chain Store Age online offers us their
Top 6 Misconceptions About eGift Cards and debunks them. Click to read on, the rebuttals, it will surprise you! 1. “eGift Cards will only cannibalize our existing gift card sales” 2. “Fraud in eGift Cards is too pervasive” 3. “Our IT department can build this internally” 4. “The technology is unproven” 5. “Customer adoption isn't there yet” 6. “New hardware will be required in all stores”
If you are a retailer looking to “go digital” with your gift cards, Gift Card Partners can help with our RFP  Management service. We embrace the tricky work of renegotiating existing vendor relationships, and help retailers implementing new relationships, with: card supplies, processors, payment systems providers, and more.  >>Learn more about our Services Suite designed to improve your gift card program.

Mobile payments are going to reach $1 billion in transactions by the end of 2013. That sounds like great growth and revenue, until you find out that in October 2012 mobile payments were expected to reach $20 billion by 2015, and are now on track to reach that milestone in 2016. A fragmented market, and many dependent and critical keys to success have stifled the mobile payments market. Hardware and infrastructure impediments, combined with competing technologies like mobile wallet solutions have slowed merchant and consumer adoption to mobile payments.
What do you use mobile payments for? Have you used your mobile POS for more than the morning cup of joe? Most consumers use mobile payment technology for small purchases only, and are slow to transition larger purchases to mobile. This is an indicator that many merchants and consumers are also hesitant to use eGift Cards, and make the necessary POS upgrades to even be able to process them. Have you ever give an eGift? These numbers tend to suggest that employers and gifters across the board would be hesitant to give an eGift given limited market adoption. The market indicators are inconsistent for mobile payments, there is growth but possibly not to the rate originally forecast. What do you think about mobile payments?
See the eMarketer Mobile Payments Forceast for 2011-2017, and
check out this article from eMarketer on further impediments affecting the mobile payments market adoption.

E-gift cards have become a popular choice in the B2B world as both an incentive and motivational tool. These virtual gems bring together the power of flexibility and convenience.

It should be of no surprise that mobile payment was a choice topic at this year’s Prepaid Expo, but as purveyors of the B2B portion of retail sales; how will we get to mobile payment? Retailers and merchants are living (or about to live) the latest technology and game changing concepts about the consumer waving their mobile device to pay. But the B2B portion of the market still has major issues to overcome. The questions that the Prepaid Expo asks ring loud in order to capture consumers and also ring true for your B2B customers and subsequent end-consumers: What will be frictionless in your environment? What will bring the greatest value? What will be the best authentication? What's the best way to reduce cost? How do you make prepaid product more relevant and valuable to cardholder before, during, after the payment transaction? Interesting quote from Bill Gates about the future: "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten."--Bill Gates Mobile buying is inevitable, but are you considering B2B gift card sales in your mobile prepaid strategy? If not, when will you shape your change? Read up on the
Prepaid Expo’s Live from Prepaid Expo: The Future of Prepaid & Mobile

Are you prepared for total immersion into e-tail? Facts to consider if your answer is NO: