The majority of shoppers prefer to receive gift cards as incentives from retailers.
As the holiday shopping season continues, retailers are looking to implement last minute tactics to boost their holiday sales.
Gift cards, both plastic and digital, are holding steady with consumers and are therefore powerful tools to incentivize shoppers and ultimately drive revenue. In 2015, 83% of consumers plan to purchase the same amount of or more physical gift cards than the previous holiday season, while 88% expect to buy the same number of or more e-gift cards, according to the First Data 2015 Consumer Insights study.
To help retailers capitalize on this trend now and drive holiday sales, First Data—the global leader in payments technology and owner of leading digital gift card app Gyft suggests:
- Issuing Small Incentives to Drive ROI: According to the First Data 2015 Consumer Insights study, on average consumers shopping with a gift card spend $27 over that original amount. Online retailers can take advantage of this by delivering a shopping credit via email to encourage shoppers to spend more and halt shopping cart abandonment in its tracks.
- Building Loyalty to Drive Repeat Sales: Loyalty and rewards programs continue to be the top motivator for 55% of consumers to pick up cards for themselves, while 37% are driven by discounts. And as shoppers hunt for holiday sales, 64% report they prefer to receive a gift card over any other type of incentive and 39% of those report spending more than they planned due to a promotion.
- Harnessing Analytics to Target Evolving Customer Habits: The power of analytics is critical in driving sales strategies, especially as shopper preferences pivot year-to-year. With Gyft’s analytics feature, retailers can capture customer preferences and behavior through digital gift cards to target consumers with cost-effective, flexible campaigns that tap into their current shopping habits.
- E-Gifting Has Become Mainstream: 50% of consumers are purchasing e-gift cards and more than half are looking to store them on their mobile devices. As well, millennials are not the only ones purchasing e-gift cards: 42% of respondents over the age of 54 have purchased them.