Are Gift Cards Used in Recognition Programs More Effective than Traditional Merchandise Awards?

 

In the fall of 2009, Incentive Magazine compared the effectiveness of gift cards to traditional merchandise awards in employee recognition programs.  Following are the results of that study. 

 

How Effective Are Gift Cards Compared to Merchandise	% of Responses
More effective than merchandise	64.7%
Equally as effective as merchandise	24.5%
Less effective than merchandise	2.2%
Do not use merchandise awards	8.6%

 

The Incentive Research Foundation has conducted this study every year since 2009, and the results have been very similar.  In fact, the data has been within +/- 5% of the original research.  This is not surprising to those of us who implement gift cards award systems in companies.  Gift cards have grown to be the single largest employee award in the industry.

 And the reasons remain the same: 

• Gift Cards aree easy to administer
• Gift Cards give your employees the award they want not the one you think they want.
• With Gift Cards virtually all of your recognition budget gets into the hand of your employees, where it belongs.

 

 

 

 

Gift cards are more effective than traditional merchandise awards for two simple reasons:  they provide the greatest choice at the greatest value to both the client and the award winner.  Nothing else even comes close.  Read more about why gift cards are the #1 incentive award.