GiftCard Partners Blog

A great post from Prepaid Expo; they outline some interesting financial prepaid stats, usages, mobile stats  and more. Interesting information about the decline in use of cash; this is a fact that employers can keep in mind when planning employee incentives and rewards. Prepaid and gift cards aren’t just as good as cash…they ARE cash and loaded on mobile devices, they are the cash of the future! Here are the tidbits most interesting to us, click below for the whole shebang: - $82 billion. That's the amount expected to be loaded onto Prepaid cards in 2012. - Consumers are using prepaid cards as a way to access wages, direct deposits increased by nearly 70% in 2011. - Mobile POS payments is expected to grow from $362.6 million in 2011 to $1.4 billion in 2017. - The use of cash is predicted to decline 3% a year until 2015, through 2015, the use of cash will decline by nearly $200 billion. - Cash point-of-sale purchases is expected to drop to 23% by 2017.
More interesting stats from Prepaid Expo

The Prepaid Expo tells us in the form of this infographic. We know our retailer and merchant gift card clients struggle with many of these challenges. There are additional challenges for those, like our clients, who are selling their prepaid products in the B2B market, and GCP supports and guides them through these challenges and those that will crop up. What % of these strategies and challenges are you dealing with?

We’ve been writing a lot about how gamification is taking employee motivation and engagement programs by storm, but does the same People + Participation = Productivity[1] theory apply to customer loyalty and incentive programs? Destination CRM.com says YES: “The things that make games so compelling can equally make employees, partners, [and] customers addicted to your B2B or B2C offering.” And we at GCP are compelled to say YES as well with case studies like this: Samsung saw impressive boosts in their customer loyalty program via their social loyalty program, Samsung Nation. With the Badgeville gaming platform, they grew their user generated content and website traffic, but more importantly; they achieved financial results as well! “Samsung, in return, saw 66 % more users submitting 447 % more product answers on its global Web site. Even more impressive, the user-generated content prompted 34 % of users to put 224 % more items in shopping carts”, states CRM.com’s article Game On. The reward is an important aspect of any motivation and incentive program, and since these games can be played online and anywhere in the world, the rewards should also offer international value. Gift cards are a common customer loyalty reward, but onthe international front; GCP offers maxchoice international vouchers. They act like gift cards, but with even more flexibility for international customers. Check out more information on
maxchoice premium international vouchers. For more in-depth information and case studies, check out
Game On: Gamification Strategies Motivate Customer and Employee Behaviors [1]
Engagement Strategies Magazine Game Theory: People + Participation = Productivity

This  is quite possibly the most comprehensive infographic ever created around mobile payments. Our question for the prepaid industry, loyalty rewards program management companies, and gift card retailers and merchants:  Is our next loyalty program component in the area of mobile payments use? Source:
MostWanted via Prepaid Expo

Longtime Olympic sponsor Visa, and cell phone giant Samsung have combined forces to launch a mobile app that will allow for patrons at the 2012 London Olympics to pay for purchases with a wave of their hand. The Visa payWave technology uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to allow consumers to pay with a wave of their mobile phone, with an approved smartphone at a specially designed mobile payment terminal. Although the technology is limited to consumers who have the approved device, this technology is believed to take less time at POS than any credit card, debit card, or cash transaction. Additionally, statistics from credit card comapnies show that consumers tend to spend more per transaction at mobile payment terminals. This technology, if it catches on from the global exposure at the 2012 Summer Games, could revolutionize payment systems. Imagine being able to redeem a gift card with a wave of your hand, instead of waiting in line to redeem your gift. The time efficiency and convenience of payment could revolutionize payments, as well as change the way consumers handle their smartphones. Phones could turn into a consumer’s, phone, computer, wallet, and bank all tucked safely into their pocket.
How do you see Contactless Payment affecting credit, debit, and gift card use going forward? For more information check out this Point of Sale News article.