GiftCard Partners Blog

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.

It’s un-debatable that more employers than ever are starting health and wellness initiatives since the inception of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). There are tax benefits for employers who offer health and wellness programs and we’ve seen lots of studies about how incentives like gift cards for success compliment these programs by driving interest, engaging participants, while boosting benefits packages and lowering health care costs.

But, the most important (and complex) question: Are employers really building healthier minds and bodies, while also increasing productivity? What about for the long term? A recent survey of more than 30,000 Ceridian LifeWorks participants presents us with a “YES!!”, via these results¹:

Who's Leading the Pack in Digital Gift Cards? The Answer May Surprise You CVS Caremark ranks high in the best of the best as the in-store to web spend shift accelerates. A leading research company along with CashStar analyzed the various digital gift card offerings of
the Internet Retailer Top 100 online. The findings will surprise you!
Read the full story
. 
How do Small Businesses Feel About the Healthcare Overhaul? One third of small business owners NOT currently offering healthcare benefits say they will be more inclined to start offering those benefits this year.  The tax credits now available to small businesses offering healthcare to their employees is making a significant impact on how small business view their benefits packages and how they will offer them in the future. 
Read the full story. 
HR Speak: What will You Gain from a Health & Wellness Incentive Program?
  
Are they Worth it? Employees of small businesses across the country are receiving rewards for healthy behavior both in and out of the office.  With the implementation of wellness programs in offices across the country, healthcare costs are decreasing for employers, and some of the saved money gets distributed to employees for healthy behavior.  Learn more about how your business could save money & how to make your employees healthier.
Read the full story.
Implement the Latest in eGift Cards from CVS Gift Cards have been taken to a new level of convenience with CashStar’s Mobile Gift Card App.  Using the CashStar app allows eGift Card recipients to redeem their gift cards directly from their phones in retail locations, including CVS!  The app creates a bar code with the value of the gift card allowing the cashier at the location to simply scan the bar code to apply the gift card.  To learn more about this secure, innovative and convenient technology,
read the full story.
About CVS/pharmacy Gift Cards