GiftCard Partners Blog

At GiftCard Partners, we strive to provide incentive and loyalty options featuring cards to the most popular brands on the market. One of our top-selling brands is The Cheesecake Factory, a restaurant known for its delicious food, Earth-shattering cheesecake and, of course, its homey, welcoming feeling. With over 30 years as a casual dining restaurant, The Cheesecake Factory uses fresh ingredients on over 200 different recipes. 

Because  The Cheesecake Factory gift cards can be used at any of the restaurants, nationwide, they make for a convenient and popular reward at countless loyalty, reward or incentive programs. At GiftCard Partners, we offer these cards to businesses of all sizes. That's why we have two options when it comes to ordering gift cards from The Cheesecake Factory:

For small businesses... We know how tough it can be to find reasonable prices as a smaller business. Because smaller companies sometimes miss out on discounts that larger ones get from buying in bulk, we want to make your gift card purchase as affordable and convenient as possible. That's why we offer:

It's no secret, people get sick and when battling a painful sore throat or ear infection waiting is NOT an option. Hence the growing popularity of walk-in health care clinics. CVS/pharmacy, the largest retail clinic operator in the Washington area, has more than 800 clinics nationwide, with plans to add more that 150 additional clinics by the end of 2014.
So what's the driving force? Several factors come into play fueling the trend of these walk-in health care clinics, one of which is the Affordable Care Act...sound familiar, you may have heard of it? With millions now being provided insurance through Medicaid, private plans or under their parents plans until age 26, getting in to see your primary care doctor quickly will be more difficult. This, along with a number of other factors, has allowed the perfect forum for retail clinics, like MinuteClinic, to take center stage. The clinics are staffed by nursed practitioners and physicians assistants and can treat anything from pink eye to strep throat, to sinus infections and minor injuries. Gift cards are even available at all 800 MinuteClinic locations and discounts are available on volume purchases. Learn more about buying MinuteClinic gift cards and giving the gift of health
here. Read more from The Washington Post about the growing trend of health care clinics
here.

As technology keeps expanding and growing, so do our payment systems. We're starting to see forward-thinking payment trends involving everything from mobile to loyalty rewards. Here are some of the latest movements in payment technology:
Mobile Capability With so many now owning smartphones, online shopping has seen a huge jump in mobile business. Because of this jump, companies are now placing a higher focus on mobile capability payments.  Plus, now the focus goes beyond smartphones as payment systems are also being developed and tested for tablet optimization as well.
Focus on Omniconsumers While mobile functionality is a very important factor for those in the payment industries, it's not only about mobile right now. Younger users are known for paying on a variety of different platforms, meaning the highest functioning payment systems will have to cater to a variety of different channels.
A Blur Between Physical and Online Shopping Consumers are not sold on only in-person or only online shopping. Many prefer to utilize both. That means that a majority of complaints that come from these double shoppers is centered around consistency between the products offered and product pricing. Smart companies are working to create consistency between off and online, especially when it comes to utilizing coupons and coupon codes.
Loyalty Rewards Loyalty rewards are becoming tremendously popular with consumers. Now, 73 percent of consumers carry loyalty rewards cards for their favorite businesses. And they don't keep it down to just one. One out of 10 customers carry six or more loyalty cards on any given day. This only goes to show the tremendous growth that the loyalty and reward businesses are seeing and will continue to see in years, and even months, to come.
For more information, read "The Ten Hottest Trends in Payments."

In a world now dominated by technology and nationwide services, companies have a tendency to lose touch with their social roots. As 1-800-FLOWERS.COM's CEO Jim McCann discusses, gone are the days of word-of-mouth advertising and, with it, a sense of community for many companies on the rise. McCann makes an effort to avoid this through what he describes as social consciousness. McCann works to keep the community conversation open in his own company, even as he sees an increase in success and his business gets bigger and busier. 
"We face a host of enormous challenges in the world today--everything from climate change to hunger to economic turmoil. It’s not possible for any one entity to solve problems when they reach this scale, but it is still our responsibility to participate in the solutions--particularly in the discussions around new and better solutions that might be developed," said McCann. For 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, it's not enough to simply contribute money to good causes. They strive to participate in the conversation. They not only hunt for opportunities to connect with customers, but also for opportunities to connect their customers to one another and with their own community. Other growing companies can follow suit by ingraining a similar mentality of social consciousness into their own business practices.
Read the full article here.

Normally work-from-home policies are tight at small and large companies alike. But would a winter like this one be enough to change employers' minds? At GiftCard Partners, we all work from home every day, and while we understand that doesn't work for everyone, here's a compelling case for a work-from-home policy that allows employees flexibility and employers increased productivity. Here's a weather-related take on employees working from home: