Retail Focus – Everything you need to know about Prepaid

The world of retail is continuously changing, with retailers having to be innovative and ahead of the competition to remain strong, with this in mind where does a gift card or prepaid scheme sit?. The prepaid market is both one that is lucrative, fast moving and diverse with the UK and Europe quickly catching up to our US counterparts with the UK alone having a total value of £4.74bn in 2012.  The Prepaid industry covers gifting in either a voucher form, gift cards or more recently in a digital / virtual format. The opportunities cover both B2B and B2C, with B2B becoming increasingly significant year on year.  Distribution channels within B2C are easily identifiable as in-store, online or through a third party.  B2B is more complex with various routes to market and segmentation including reward and recognition, incentive and motivation, government, charity, savings and insurance replacement.

Launching a gift card, e gift code or a voucher can be daunting; however, there are true benefits which retailers can reap from a prepaid product beyond the obvious income of a card or code.  Working to a financial model it is possible to explore the benefits to a retailer including instrumentality, breakage and cash flow providing profitability beyond just the cash value sale.  Join us next week at the Prepaid Expo Europe at 9am on 17th April where this will be explained in further detail and exploring the in’s and outs of the financial benefits to a retailer.


Brian Dunne:

President of the IMA in Europe, IMA ( Incentive Marketing Association ) is the not for profit trade association for the incentive industry, which is a role I am very proud and humbled to have.
I am also MD and equity partner at SVM Europe from which I have the honour of working with the very best in class.

SVM is the global leader in gift cards , the leading and largest supplier of gift cards to incentive companies and driver of incremental sales for many of the greatest retail brands on the planet.

Prior to that I was CEO at Action Solutions, the UK’s leading prepaid consultants. 25 years experience in retail and hospitality, including holding positions at some of the prepaid market leaders such as Whitbread Leisure Vouchers and The Post Office. Worked with some of the world’s largest retailers and hospitality brand providers, including Target Corporation, WHSmith and Boots, helping clients to set up new gift card programmes, analyse gift card performance, drive incremental trade through B2B and other channels and to develop new and innovative uses of prepay to achieve specific business objectives and goals.


IMA Europe:
IMA Europe, a Strategic Industry Group of the Incentive Marketing Association, was formed with the mission of stimulating and developing the benefits that incentive marketing offers to all kind of organizations in Europe. The IMA is a reference organization for the local incentive and motivation markets as a European mirror to the IMA US.

With the task of helping incentive and motivation marketing become widely accepted throughout Europe, IMA Europe is making an important effort to become a permanently updated information source, promoting its member’s interests and the best industry practices.

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Facebook: The Next Player in Prepaid?

Facebook is expanding their prepaid presence with the launch of its own branded gift card. The card began rolling out last week and continues to expand availability gradually for U.S. users. This card is currently available for use at four merchant partners; Jamba Juice, Olive Garden, Sephora, and Target. Once a user physically possesses the card, gift amounts will be loaded onto that card – which has separate balances for each merchant. Balances are available to monitor from within users Facebook accounts, and users will receive a notification every time  a charge is made.

This is an interesting move from Facebook – especially given the numerous more flexible gift card options in the market.  Does a move from a social media heavyweight like Facebook have merit or do their failed attempts at virtual currency hang a shadow over this development?

Either way you see it, Facebook’s move clearly denotes one thing – prepaid is a growing industry and competition continues to heighten.

Prepaid Players –  let us know what you think about this move from Facebook!

See the full article from Paybefore here.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ryan Geswell is a New Media Analyst in the Finance Division at IIR USA with a background in Marketing and Media. He can be reached at rgeswell@iirusa.com.

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