A fast-growing industry with a projected market size of AUD 40 billion by 2025, prepaid cards are a staple in most Australian consumers’ wallets, most commonly in the form of a gift or travel card. While prepaid and gift cards are relatively ‘new’ to market since their introduction early 2000’s, they have been re-imagined and re-branded to become a fully-fledged financial product popular with fintechs, retailers and consumers looking for alternative payments.
At True Rewards, we understand the opportunities that digital gift cards can bring to businesses wanting to improve their acquisition and retention strategies, launch products without complex integrations and disburse funds efficiently. Here are five use cases for digital gift cards that showcase their unique benefits outside of corporate gifting.
- Cashback Integration: According to a study by CashReward, more than 60% of consumers feel that cashbacks are more persuasive than rewards points in encouraging them to spend. By integrating gift card into cashback programs, businesses can enhance the value proposition for customers while generating additional revenue. This strategy incentivises spending, encourages customers to try out new products and fosters customer loyalty.
- Cashing out loyalty programs: Allowing customers to cash out loyalty points for gift cards provides a convenient and desirable reward option. This encourages engagement with loyalty programs, leading to increased customer retention and repeat purchases.
- Marketplace: Selling digital gift cards directly to consumers creates an opportunity to tap into the growing gift card market and create a new revenue stream. With True Reward’s API, we can re-skin our rewards widget to your brand and desired user experience.
- Promotions: similar to cashback, gift cards can be leveraged as a reward to drive consumer behaviour, such as buying a product, signing up to a subscription or making a successful referral. They can also be used to re-engage inactive customers through a win-back campaign or as a prize for giveaway. Gift cards are also an effective way to promote your brand, simply by adding your brand on gift card designs in a creative way.
- Disbursement: Companies needing to disburse funds efficiently and cost-effectively should consider using prepaid cards or open-loop digital gift cards, such as True Reward’s Visa Digital Gift Card, to payout in bulk quickly and on-demand. Prepaid cards come in various forms, such as Single Load (gift card) vs Reloadable (general purpose), Open-loop (such as Visa) vs Closed-loop (single retailer) gift cards. Choosing the right type of prepaid card ensures that funds are used as intended to support your disbursement needs, such as for incentives, gig and welfare payments.
With Australians making a whooping 2.4 billion mobile wallet transactions per year, it’s safe to say that digital gift cards are already embedded into consumers’ payment preferences. While corporate rewards remains the top use case for digital gift cards, there are many other untapped opportunities for digital gift cards to drive customer engagement, profitability and operational efficiency.
Considering digital gift cards for your rewarding, incentives, or cashback offers? Book in a free demo of our True Rewards platform or sign up your business for free.
