CashStar Releases Statistics that Show the Youth and Potential of eGift Card Market

Mercator Overviews

by Mercator Advisory Group May 11, 2011 2:03 pm0

CashStar, a company that offers software to enable companies to sell electronic or virtual gift cards, reported eGift card sales results for the week of Mother’s Day 2011. The company said that eGift Card sales grew by just over 4.5 times compared with Mother’s Day last year, though it offered no dollar volume figures.

•eGift Card sales increased 123 percent between Monday, May 2 and Mother’s Day, May 8 (as compared to the week prior)

•Saturday, May 7 was the biggest selling day in terms of monetary value, representing an increase of 434 percent (as compared to the day before Mother’s Day in 2010)

•Mother’s Day sales figures were up 453 percent year-over-year, and the number of individual cards sold that day was up 434 percent

The high growth rates and lack of volume numbers to provide context show that the eGift Card market remains small, but is showing signs of life. According to a survey from the National Retail Federation, almost 40 percent of consumers said they planned to spend an average of $35 on gift cards or gift certificates for Mother’s Day presents. It is not hard to believe that many of those buyers were procrastinators who saw the advantage of a virtual card. The question remains as to how many people think an e-mail is good enough for a Mother’s Day gift as opposed to better than nothing.

For more on this topic, please see the Mercator Research note:“The Future of Prepaid Cards is not “Plastics”.
Read the CashStar press release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110511005925/en/eGift-Cards-Boost-Mother%E2%80%99s-Day-Sales-Extending

Read about the NRF survey here: http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=News&op=viewlive&sp_id=1114