|
|
Internet Travel Monitor - Marketing & Research
November 14, 2007
Two Sides to Story of Gift Card Success
NEW YORK, NY – Gift cards continue to gain in popularity, according to new survey from the National Retail Federation. But, new research from the Consumer Reports National Research Center paints a different picture.
The fifth annual NRF Gift Card Survey found that gift card sales will total $26.3 billion this holiday season compared to $24.8 billion in 2006. Gift cards are also in the top three gifts consumers plan to buy this year, with 56.6% of consumers surveyed saying gift cards are on their list. Clothing and accessories make the list for 57.2% of shoppers and books, CDs, DVDs, videos or video games were named by 57.1%. The survey was conducted by BIGresearch and polled 7,982 consumers from October 31-November 7.
Sales for gift cards have been steadily increasing over the past few years because of their convenience. As a result, retailers are more actively promoting gift cards and coming up with ways to differentiate their offerings from other retailers. For example, this year several retailers are bundling gift cards with DVD content.
However, the Consumer Reports survey of 1,003 adults that was conducted in October found that 27% of those who received gift cards during the 2006 holiday season had not used one or more of them nearly a year later compared to 19% who hadn’t used them in the previous year. The most common reasons people gave for not spending their gift cards were that they didn’t have time to shop (58%) or couldn’t find anything to buy (35%).
Copyright 2007 Haymarket Media Inc. All rights
reserved. From http://www.dmnews.com. By Chantal Todé.
To view the Internet Travel Monitor Archive, click http://www.tripinfo.com/ITM/index.html.
|
|
