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Future of Retail — Customer Engagement
issue 08
“The two key words in eGifting are immediacy and personalisation. In fact, these principles are well worth holding at the front of your mind when you design any system around digital purchasing.”
As connectivity continues to become ubiquitous, immediacy has become vital. According to Salesforce, a recent study claimed that 64% of consumers expect companies to respond to them and interact in real time. This is where eGifts come into their own. 70% of consumers reported that technology has made it easier than ever to eGift someone with digital purchasing, and businesses can now tap into eGifts whether it’s a response to a marketing campaign, to apologise for poor service, or as part of a reward or loyalty programme.
SO, HOW CAN YOU BRING YOUR GIFT CARD PROGRAMME BANG UP TO DATE? The two key words in eGifting are immediacy and personalisation. In fact, these principles are well worth holding at the front of your mind when you design any system around digital purchasing. As you know, many retailers, both offline
and online, offer the option of gift cards as a way to shop or give money to friends or family. Where businesses are missing out is in the ability to use gift cards as an analytics tool. Instead of tucking a dusty plastic gift card stand behind a till, an eGift offers the ability for retailers to truly start to understand the demographics of their audience - from what devices they use to what they are spending money on. As they say, knowledge is power, and the
ability to use information on eGifting to feed back into your communications strategy is a great way of increasing engagement and sales.
THE GOOD NEWS IS CONSUMERS ARE READY Historically gift cards were one-time load, whereas prepaid cards were fully reloadable.
However, today many gift cards are offered as reloadable and in fact, recent research in the UK and US has shown that almost 20% of gift cards are purchased for self-use. That’s a huge statistic! An eGift results almost always in a win-
win situation for the businesses that offer them. When an eGift is purchased, the full value of the sale goes directly to the retailer regardless of whether or not the gift card is ever redeemed. It’s estimated that there are around 10% of gift cards or eGifts that aren’t claimed each year. While this may not seem like a high figure, it can be quite a significant amount from a business point of view. You need to have control of the eGift
programme you do choose. Perhaps you need a settlement engine and daily liability reports so the business can maintain close oversight of the programme? Also consider the ‘nuts and bolts’ of a programme. For example, does it offer a reload or recharge capability, real- time authorisation and transaction processing and can it combine with vouchers, coupons and other promotions? Integration with your POS, any existing
environments and a CRM are also key principles. Above and beyond this are things that
are nice to have such as optional cardholder registration, the ability to use an online customer portal to check balances and redemptions and of course, the ‘look’ of the eGift on delivery. The crux of the matter is that if you don’t
offer existing and potential customers the opportunity to eGift or purchase electronically, you’re disengaging an entire market. The great news is the right strategy will see your business reaping the rewards if you can move quickly.
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