Increased Spending on Incentive Gift Cards

After experiencing double digit growth in gift card funding for many years, the Mercator Advisory Group (a payment and consultancy research firm) reports that dollars loaded on retail gift cards declined by 9% in 2015.  However, over the same time frame the report stated that the only segment that had an increase in the dollar load was Employee and Channel Partner Incentives.

The report stated that gift cards as awards for employee and channel incentives remained “easy to deliver and effective.”

It was suggested that the decrease in the retail segment was due to retailers focused on convincing shoppers to favor merchandise with discounts and sales. The retailers steered customers toward buying goods.

 

This news is not surprising to us as we have seen a marked increase in spending on our gift card products.  The gift card segment of the recognition and incentive business has increased exponentially over the last couple of decades.  This was driven by both clients and participants alike.  Clients want a more cost effective and simple way to recognize performance, and participants want the ability to choose the award that suits their own lifestyle. 

The combination of clients increasing the spend on the gift cards and the recipients being able to take advantage the discounts and sales by the retailers, is a definite win-win for incentive and recognition participants.  In addition the value of the merchandise received through gift cards far and away exceeds the value of traditional award merchandise that some companies still use to motivate their employees and channel partners.  

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net