[184 Pages Report] The Gift Cards Market size was estimated at USD 827.11 billion in 2023 and expected to reach USD 879.43 billion in 2024, at a CAGR 6.41% to reach USD 1,278.52 billion by 2030.
Gift cards are stored-value, prepaid money cards issued by banks or retailers to be used as an alternative to cash for purchases of shopping within particular stores or related businesses. They come in two primary forms: closed-loop cards, which can only be utilized at the issuing retailer, and open-loop cards, which are often powered by major credit card processors, making them universally accepted at any business that accepts those credit cards. The proliferation of gift cards is largely driven by their convenience, universality, the rise of digital gifting, and a growing preference for cashless transactions. Technological advancements have streamlined the purchasing and redemption process, with digital or e-gift cards gaining traction due to immediate delivery and ease of use. However, there is a possibility of loss or theft, expiration dates or inactivity fees diminishing their value, and limitations on where they can be used, particularly with closed-loop cards, impede their adoption. Some issuers are offering protection for registered cards, extending expiration dates, or removing fees to improve the user experience to sustain their utility. The personalization and customization of gift cards are also areas of potential expansion as consumers seek unique gifting options. Moreover, the introduction of eco-friendly, biodegradable, or digital-only cards aligns with a growing environmental consciousness.
In the Americas, particularly the United States, the gift card market is mature and highly integrated, with both open-loop cards and closed-loop cards being immensely popular. The production of gift cards in this region typically involves sophisticated personalization technologies and efforts toward sustainability, with digital gift cards gaining rapid traction. North American companies dominate in terms of innovation and market share, with an ecosystem consisting of retailers, financial institutions, and specialized gift card companies. The Asia-Pacific region presents a more fragmented picture, with rapid growth and adoption of mobile and e-gift card solutions underpinned by the prevalence of mobile payment systems and the rise of eCommerce. Production in APAC is diversifying, with a significant increase in digital solutions and environmentally friendly physical cards. Numerous local companies are emerging, specializing in gift card solutions, increasingly engaging in partnerships with regional retailers and fintech firms to leverage the expanding digital consumer base. In Europe, particularly Western Europe, gift card usage is high, with a strong focus on consumer protection and regulatory compliance in their production and distribution. Digitalization is progressing steadily, emphasizing security features and multi-currency functionality to cater to a more global consumer base. Companies in EMEA tend to be diverse, ranging from established global players to local retailers keen on tapping the gift card market to incentivize customer loyalty and engagement.
eGifting, also known as digital or electronic gift cards, refers to the process of purchasing and sending gift cards via electronic means, such as email, SMS, or through a brand's app or website. Users favor e-gift cards for their convenience, immediate delivery, and the ease of customization. They are particularly popular among tech-savvy consumers and those seeking last-minute gifts. Miscellaneous closed loop gift cards are specific to a particular service, experience, or non-traditional retail offering. This could include gift cards for airlines, hotels, spas, or niche markets and they create value by offering a unique and often personalized experience that can be redeemed only within the issuer's venues or platforms. These cards are typically preferred by consumers who are gifting within a specific interest or hobby, ensuring the recipient gets an experience or product they will enjoy. Music and streaming gift cards are designed for use with online music and video streaming services and these cards are often preferred by consumers who wish to gift entertainment options, catering to the recipient's interest in music, movies, or television. Gift cards for restaurants are closed-loop cards that can be used exclusively at specified restaurant brands or chains, and they are popular gifts for food enthusiasts or as a convenient option for a night out. Retail closed loop cards are gift cards redeemable only at the issuing retailer's locations or online stores. They cater to shoppers of specific retail brands, ranging from department stores to specialized boutiques. Universal accepted open loop gift cards can be used wherever the card's payment network, such as Visa, Mastercard, or American Express, is accepted, making them the most flexible gift card option. This type of gift card is typically favored by those who want to provide the recipient with the ultimate purchasing flexibility without being limited to a specific store or service.
Coffee shop gift cards cater to a specific audience that frequently visits coffee shops for their daily caffeine fix or casual meetings. The preference for coffee shop gift cards is driven by convenience and loyalty. Customers appreciate the ease of not carrying cash or cards, and businesses benefit from the customer loyalty that these cards encourage. Entertainment gift cards satisfy the need for recreational activities, such as watching movies, gaming, or attending events. Customers prefer these cards as gifts for friends and family, adding an element of thoughtfulness and personalization to their present. Gift cards from restaurants or food chains satisfy the universal appeal of dining out. The preference for these cards often comes from the convenience of gifting an experience, particularly for individuals who appreciate outdoor eating adventures. Retail gift cards are designed for customers who enjoy shopping, for clothing, electronics, or home goods. Travel gift cards are popular among individuals who love to explore new destinations or need a getaway. These cards are preferred for their flexibility, allowing recipients to apply them towards flights, accommodation, or travel packages.
The market dynamics represent an ever-changing landscape of the Gift Cards Market by providing actionable insights into factors, including supply and demand levels. Accounting for these factors helps design strategies, make investments, and formulate developments to capitalize on future opportunities. In addition, these factors assist in avoiding potential pitfalls related to political, geographical, technical, social, and economic conditions, highlighting consumer behaviors and influencing manufacturing costs and purchasing decisions.
The market disruption analysis delves into the core elements associated with market-influencing changes, including breakthrough technological advancements that introduce novel features, integration capabilities, regulatory shifts that could drive or restrain market growth, and the emergence of innovative market players challenging traditional paradigms. This analysis facilitates a competitive advantage by preparing players in the Gift Cards Market to pre-emptively adapt to these market-influencing changes, enhances risk management by early identification of threats, informs calculated investment decisions, and drives innovation toward areas with the highest demand in the Gift Cards Market.
The porter's five forces analysis offers a simple and powerful tool for understanding, identifying, and analyzing the position, situation, and power of the businesses in the Gift Cards Market. This model is helpful for companies to understand the strength of their current competitive position and the position they are considering repositioning into. With a clear understanding of where power lies, businesses can take advantage of a situation of strength, improve weaknesses, and avoid taking wrong steps. The tool identifies whether new products, services, or companies have the potential to be profitable. In addition, it can be very informative when used to understand the balance of power in exceptional use cases.
The value chain of the Gift Cards Market encompasses all intermediate value addition activities, including raw materials used, product inception, and final delivery, aiding in identifying competitive advantages and improvement areas. Critical path analysis of the <> market identifies task sequences crucial for timely project completion, aiding resource allocation and bottleneck identification. Value chain and critical path analysis methods optimize efficiency, improve quality, enhance competitiveness, and increase profitability. Value chain analysis targets production inefficiencies, and critical path analysis ensures project timeliness. These analyses facilitate businesses in making informed decisions, responding to market demands swiftly, and achieving sustainable growth by optimizing operations and maximizing resource utilization.
The pricing analysis comprehensively evaluates how a product or service is priced within the Gift Cards Market. This evaluation encompasses various factors that impact the price of a product, including production costs, competition, demand, customer value perception, and changing margins. An essential aspect of this analysis is understanding price elasticity, which measures how sensitive the market for a product is to its price change. It provides insight into competitive pricing strategies, enabling businesses to position their products advantageously in the Gift Cards Market.
The technology analysis involves evaluating the current and emerging technologies relevant to a specific industry or market. This analysis includes breakthrough trends across the value chain that directly define the future course of long-term profitability and overall advancement in the Gift Cards Market.
The patent analysis involves evaluating patent filing trends, assessing patent ownership, analyzing the legal status and compliance, and collecting competitive intelligence from patents within the Gift Cards Market and its parent industry. Analyzing the ownership of patents, assessing their legal status, and interpreting the patents to gather insights into competitors' technology strategies assist businesses in strategizing and optimizing product positioning and investment decisions.
The trade analysis of the Gift Cards Market explores the complex interplay of import and export activities, emphasizing the critical role played by key trading nations. This analysis identifies geographical discrepancies in trade flows, offering a deep insight into regional disparities to identify geographic areas suitable for market expansion. A detailed analysis of the regulatory landscape focuses on tariffs, taxes, and customs procedures that significantly determine international trade flows. This analysis is crucial for understanding the overarching legal framework that businesses must navigate.
The regulatory framework analysis for the Gift Cards Market is essential for ensuring legal compliance, managing risks, shaping business strategies, fostering innovation, protecting consumers, accessing markets, maintaining reputation, and managing stakeholder relations. Regulatory frameworks shape business strategies and expansion initiatives, guiding informed decision-making processes. Furthermore, this analysis uncovers avenues for innovation within existing regulations or by advocating for regulatory changes to foster innovation.
The FPNV positioning matrix is essential in evaluating the market positioning of the vendors in the Gift Cards Market. This matrix offers a comprehensive assessment of vendors, examining critical metrics related to business strategy and product satisfaction. This in-depth assessment empowers users to make well-informed decisions aligned with their requirements. Based on the evaluation, the vendors are then categorized into four distinct quadrants representing varying levels of success, namely Forefront (F), Pathfinder (P), Niche (N), or Vital (V).
The market share analysis is a comprehensive tool that provides an insightful and in-depth assessment of the current state of vendors in the Gift Cards Market. By meticulously comparing and analyzing vendor contributions, companies are offered a greater understanding of their performance and the challenges they face when competing for market share. These contributions include overall revenue, customer base, and other vital metrics. Additionally, this analysis provides valuable insights into the competitive nature of the sector, including factors such as accumulation, fragmentation dominance, and amalgamation traits observed over the base year period studied. With these illustrative details, vendors can make more informed decisions and devise effective strategies to gain a competitive edge in the market.
Restaurant.com Owner RDE Acquires Gift Card Marketplace CardCash.com
RDE, the company behind Restaurant.com, completed the acquisition of CardCash.com, a player in the secondary gift card space, in a strategic move to solidify its presence in the lucrative gift card market. This merger promises to enhance consumer savings through a synergistic model that leverages digital convenience. As customers gain access to an enriched selection of discounted gift cards, the expanded product offerings are expected to tap into the substantial domestic gift card industry. [Published On: 2024-01-03]
Onbe and CardCash Partner to Offer Instant Virtual Cards
CardCash, an online marketplace dedicated to the buying and selling of unused gift cards, revolutionized the way consumers manage unwanted gift cards by partnering with Onbe for an innovative solution. This collaboration has led to the creation of an instant virtual Mastercard payment option, providing immediate spending capabilities for users across any merchant accepting Mastercard. By incorporating Onbe's virtual card options with CardCash's existing payout alternatives, including checks, ACH, and PayPal, consumers now have a diversified and flexible range of choices for liquidating their unused gift cards. [Published On: 2023-12-20]
InComm Payments and Meal Train Partner to Supply Gift Card Options for Individuals Organizing Meal Support
InComm Payments announced an exclusive partnership with Meal Train, the innovative online platform designed to coordinate meal giving for those experiencing significant life events. This collaboration is expected to extend Meal Train's offerings to include a robust selection of InComm Payments' physical and digital gift cards, enhancing the ways customers can provide support through meal deliveries, grocery shopping, dining options, and more. The partnership brings popular consumer brand gift cards into the fold and introduces InComm's proprietary card brands, available in multiple designs for a personalized touch. [Published On: 2023-11-07]
The strategic analysis is essential for organizations seeking a solid foothold in the global marketplace. Companies are better positioned to make informed decisions that align with their long-term aspirations by thoroughly evaluating their current standing in the Gift Cards Market. This critical assessment involves a thorough analysis of the organization’s resources, capabilities, and overall performance to identify its core strengths and areas for improvement.
The report delves into recent significant developments in the Gift Cards Market, highlighting leading vendors and their innovative profiles. These include Airbnb, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., American Express Company, Apple Inc., Best Buy Co., Inc., Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc., Carrefour Group by Majid Al Futtaim Holding, Costco Wholesale Corporation, eBay Inc., Flipkart Internet Private Limited, Givex Corporation, Google LLC by Alphabet Inc., H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB, Home Depot Product Authority, LLC, InComm Payments by e2Interactive, Inc., Inter IKEA Systems B.V., J Sainsbury PLC, JCB Co., Ltd., JD Sports Fashion PLC, Lowe's Companies, Inc., LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton, Macys.com, LLC, PayPal Holdings, Inc., Starbucks Coffee Company, Target Corporation, The Kroger Company, Virgin Red Limited, Walgreen Co., Walmart Inc., and ZARA by ITX MERKEN, B.V..
This research report categorizes the Gift Cards Market to forecast the revenues and analyze trends in each of the following sub-markets:
- Type
- E-Gifting
- Miscellaneous Closed Loop
- Music and Streaming Gift Cards
- Restaurant Closed Loop
- Retail Closed Loop
- Universal Accepted Open Loop
- Application
- Coffee Shop
- Entertainment
- Restaurants or Food Chains
- Retail
- Travel
- Region
- Americas
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Canada
- Mexico
- United States
- California
- Florida
- Illinois
- New York
- Ohio
- Pennsylvania
- Texas
- Asia-Pacific
- Australia
- China
- India
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Malaysia
- Philippines
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Taiwan
- Thailand
- Vietnam
- Europe, Middle East & Africa
- Denmark
- Egypt
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Israel
- Italy
- Netherlands
- Nigeria
- Norway
- Poland
- Qatar
- Russia
- Saudi Arabia
- South Africa
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Turkey
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- Americas
- Market Penetration: This section thoroughly overviews the current market landscape, incorporating detailed data from key industry players.
- Market Development: The report examines potential growth prospects in emerging markets and assesses expansion opportunities in mature segments.
- Market Diversification: This includes detailed information on recent product launches, untapped geographic regions, recent industry developments, and strategic investments.
- Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: An in-depth analysis of the competitive landscape is conducted, covering market share, strategic approaches, product range, certifications, regulatory approvals, patent analysis, technology developments, and advancements in the manufacturing capabilities of leading market players.
- Product Development & Innovation: This section offers insights into upcoming technologies, research and development efforts, and notable advancements in product innovation.
- What is the current market size and projected growth?
- Which products, segments, applications, and regions offer promising investment opportunities?
- What are the prevailing technology trends and regulatory frameworks?
- What is the market share and positioning of the leading vendors?
- What revenue sources and strategic opportunities do vendors in the market consider when deciding to enter or exit?
- Preface
- Research Methodology
- Executive Summary
- Market Overview
- Market Insights
- Gift Cards Market, by Type
- Gift Cards Market, by Application
- Americas Gift Cards Market
- Asia-Pacific Gift Cards Market
- Europe, Middle East & Africa Gift Cards Market
- Competitive Landscape
- Competitive Portfolio
- List of Figures [Total: 20]
- List of Tables [Total: 206]
- List of Companies Mentioned [Total: 30]
Convenience and Flexibility:
One of the reasons why gift cards are becoming more popular as employee incentives is because they offer convenience and flexibility. With gift cards, employees can choose their own rewards, thereby increasing their motivation to achieve goals set by the company. This also provides employees with the ability to use their rewards at a time and location that suits them. For employers, gift cards are easy to obtain and distribute, either as physical cards or digital certificates.
Increase Employee Retention:
Another benefit of offering gift cards as incentives is that it improves employee retention. When employees receive gifts like gift cards, they feel more valued and appreciated and are more likely to stay with their current employer. Moreover, offering gift cards as incentives can also attract new talent to companies that use them. As a result, companies that offer gift cards as incentives have a higher chance of attracting and keeping top talent, thereby improving their bottom line.
Customizability:
Gift cards are versatile and customizable, and can be tailored to the needs and preferences of employees. For example, employers can choose to offer gift cards from a variety of retailers, restaurants, or experiences, and tailor the amount of the reward based on the employee's preferences or performance. This customization provides employees with the opportunity to choose their rewards, promotes a sense of loyalty, and encourages sustained motivation.
Cost-Effective:
Gift cards are relatively inexpensive when compared to other incentive options such as salary raises, bonuses, or company trips. Therefore, companies can still offer rewards while keeping costs low. Moreover, companies can also choose to collaborate with retailers or distributors to obtain gift cards at a discount. Furthermore, since gift cards can be purchased in bulk, companies can offer incentives to a larger number of employees, maximizing the impact of the incentive program.
Digital Gift Cards:
As we live in a world where technology is now part of our lives, and digital technology has made it possible to send and receive gift cards online. This can provide greater convenience as retailers or companies issue digital gift cards that can be sent directly to employees via email. This is particularly useful during periods when working remotely is necessary. It also allows companies to distribute gift cards instantly without having to wait for physical cards to be printed and delivered.
As the use of gift cards in incentive programs continues to rise, it is clear that there are many benefits to using them. Gift cards offer convenience and flexibility, can increase employee retention, are customizable, cost-effective, and are now available in digital formats. With these benefits, companies can improve the efficiency of their employee motivation programs while keeping costs low. Therefore, businesses should consider integrating gift cards as incentives into their workplace cultures to encourage and motivate their employees in a manner that meets the needs of both employees and employers.
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