Buyatab's 2018 Vancouver summit brought consumer behaviour, employee recognition and fraud into a one-day programme for the gift card industry. The company published its account of the event on June 18. [S01]

Why people buy and why companies give

Claire Booth, identified in the recap as founder and president of market research firm Lux Insights, opened the conference with a presentation on cognitive biases and purchasing behaviour. The session considered the reasons behind spending decisions rather than announcing a new gift card product.

Guusto also presented at the event. Buyatab described the digital gifting platform as being used for employee incentives and recognition, adding a workplace use case to the discussion of consumer purchasing. [S01]

Fraud and privacy remain operational questions

Chris Falk, then Buyatab's chief technology officer, spoke about fraud, privacy and the consumer. These topics sat alongside programme practices and partner presentations.

The agenda illustrates the different jobs a gift card programme is asked to perform: influence a purchase, recognize an employee and preserve confidence in stored value. Buyatab's recap offered a record of those discussions, not a performance study. It did not report attendance totals, quantified effects of the behavioural ideas or measured changes in fraud. [S01]