Digital Gift Cards Pave Way for A Seamless Future
Digital gift cards are combining the traditional uses of gift cards as currency among gifters and gift receivers, and the cutting edge technology of mobile payments. As mobile payments and mobile wallets because more common at retailer POS, employers can begin to think of digital gift cards as easier solutions to employee reward, health and wellness and safety programs. Here are three reasons digital gift cards are the wave of the gift card future:
Staggering Stats About the (Lack of) Employee Engagement
We found some scary stats from the Harvard Business Review about employee engagement, and how much is lacking from today's workplace. Here are just 3 quick facts from a recent Bain & Company and Netsurvey study.
Digital Gifting: The Gift Card of the Future
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.
Happy Employees Can Be A Profit Center
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.
Whole Foods, Sticking to Its Roots
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.
