Runa has reviewed GCVA consumer research pointing to stronger demand for gift card choice and cross-channel redemption. Its April 2025 article combines gift card purchasing findings with the report’s outlook for UK retail spending.
According to the figures cited by Runa, the proportion of buyers selecting multistore gift cards reached 39.5% in February 2025, compared with 34.7% a year earlier. The company interprets the increase as evidence that recipients value flexibility beyond a single retailer.
The original GCVA/GlobalData report describes a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK shoppers, with the February wave entering the field on March 1, 2025. The multistore figures concern gift-card buyers within the survey, not all shoppers or the value of sales. The report does not disclose that subgroup’s size, detailed weights or the earlier wave’s separate sample count. [S02]
UK gift-card buyers reporting a multistore purchase
Monthly retrospective survey; February 2024 compared with February 2025.
% of surveyed gift-card buyers
Tap or hover for details. All values are also available in the data table.
Source
Self-reported purchase incidence, not transaction value or market share. Respondents could purchase more than one type. No paired longitudinal sample or causal effect of greater choice is established.
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| Category | % of surveyed gift-card buyers |
|---|---|
| February 2024 | 34.7 % of surveyed gift-card buyers |
| February 2025 | 39.5 % of surveyed gift-card buyers |
Redemption access is another theme: 53.8% of respondents expected a retailer’s gift cards to work across its sales channels. For merchants and reward platforms, that puts attention on whether a recipient can use the card online and in physical locations as expected.
Runa also cites greater interest in using gift cards to support favored businesses. The original question combined past action and future intention: respondents agreed they had or would buy cards to support companies they liked. Agreement rose from 13.1% in February 2024 to 30.1% in February 2025, an increase of 17 percentage points, rather than the more-than-threefold increase claimed in the source commentary. [S02]
Experience, leisure and gaming rewards were additional areas of interest in the review. Runa links those preferences to the value of maintaining a varied catalog rather than relying only on conventional retail brands.
The review also cites a forecast for UK retail spending to grow by 2.9% in 2025, following reported growth of 1.6% in 2024. Runa connects the gift card findings to digital delivery, a broader merchant selection and redemption across retailers' online and physical channels.
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Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed covers industry acquisitions, investment and market research for Gift Card News.