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
