Diggecard: Gift Card Partnerships for Retail and Employee Benefits

Retail and leisure brands can use specialist gift card partners to develop sales channels into employee, customer and member reward programs, Diggecard argues in an April 5, 2022 article. Its analysis connects those distribution partnerships with household cost pressures and demand for savings on everyday purchases.

The article cites the Retail Think Tank’s forecast at the start of 2022: a difficult opening to the year, followed by expected retail growth of 1%–2%. Diggecard uses that historical outlook as context for its discussion of partnerships and household value.

The article highlights the importance of partnerships in delivering value, citing the example of a partnership between Costa and M&S, which allows customers to buy M&S food in a Costa cafe. Similarly, in the gift card industry, collaborative partnerships can help retail and leisure brands focus on their core business while gift card experts deliver programs that open new sales channels and increase customer loyalty.

Diggecard cites the GCVA's State of the Nation 2022 research as finding that more than half of gift card recipients were introduced to a new brand or organisation, rising to 67.3% among Gen Z consumers. That percentage concerns brand introduction, rather than the proportion who became regular customers.