Gift cards continue to be a favorite among gift-givers and recipients and are forecasted to reach $118 billion in sales this year.[1] For merchants, that means gift cards represent a tremendous opportunity to drive both revenue and customer engagement. However, realizing the potential is only half the battle. Merchants also need to equip themselves with insights from data such as gift card program benchmark evaluations. CashStar, a leading provider of merchant solutions for gift card ecommerce, sponsored NAPCO Research’s evaluation of 100 merchants across 14 vertical sectors to provide a comprehensive assessment of the gift card ecommerce landscape.
NAPCO Research leveraged publicly accessible information about merchant’s consumer and B2B gift card e-commerce offerings and the use of gift cards for marketing. Criteria were designed to look for expected and emerging capabilities for merchants’ online digital and physical gift card offerings through desktop, mobile app and B2B channels. In addition, the study evaluated the recipient experience for both digital and physical cards, including redemption options.
A summary of the findings in the infographic below outlines the key takeaways from the evaluation and reveals some additional areas of opportunity where merchants can work to improve the customer experience across gift card ecommerce channels. Brands might consider these findings when examining or looking to strengthen their own gift card programs.
[1] 14th Annual U.S. Closed-Loop & Open-Loop Prepaid Cards Market Forecasts 2017-2020 was published by Mercator Advisory Board in 2017.
