November 3, 2009

Eric Strautman
Marketing & Communications
iCARD Systems
Office 636.489.4698 ext. 2007 | Email eric.strautman@icardsystems.com

Technology fuels Gift Card popularity and access

St. Louis, MO – Gift cards have dramatically evolved over the last decade, along with the technology that supports them. Once viewed strictly as a last-minute gift for hard-to-shop-for friends and family, gift cards are now a common currency in just about everyone’s billfold or purse.

According to the National Retail Federation, consumers are expected to spend $24.9 billion on gift cards this holiday season.

Today, an increasing portion of gift card sales is for corporate use; as employee incentives, promotions, and rebates. But consider for a moment the logistics of ordering, personalizing, activating, packaging, and delivering a single 10,000 card corporate order. It would be challenging even all those cards were simply being bulk-shipped to a single corporate location.

iCARD Gift Card, a Florida company and affiliate of iCARD Systems with representation in California, Missouri and Florida, delivers individual cards to thousands of individual locations each and every week of the year. Fortunately, some entrepreneurial smarts, Web technology and good old-fashioned know-how make the process highly efficient and error-free.

“The real trick in our business is to offer choice,” said Jeff Ehney, iCARD’s founder. “For example, we have an emailable gift card that allows the recipient to use the value to select the merchant gift cards that they want.” “That way,” he says, “an employer doesn’t have to give every employee the same restaurant or merchant card. People are different. We all like different things.”

To support consumer choices, iCARD uses some patent-pending technology for distribution of a unique value code, along with a customizeable, e-greeting type card that is delivered via email. Alternatively, it can be printed for hand-delivery. Either way, the code is redeemed at a redemption Web site, http://www.icardgiftcard.com, where the recipient selects gift cards from nearly 150 different popular merchants and restaurants. Macy’s, Kohl’s, iTunes and Starbucks are among the more popular merchants. Restaurants vary from national chains like TGIFriday’s to more regionally popular choices like Longbranch Steakhouse.

“One cool feature of our service,” says Eric Strautman, iCARD’s marketing director, “is that a recipient can split their gift card value between various merchants. They can even choose digital gift cards for online shopping, if they want.” The digital gift cards basically work like discounts that are taken off your bill when you check out online.

iCARD’s vaults are stocked with a healthy inventory of merchant gift cards to ensure timely fulfillment. “Fortunately,” says Ehney, “our locations enable us to make deliveries to any American city in three days or less.” Without inventory management and accounting software, and strict cashflow management, this business would not be possible.

iCARD services both business and individual consumers. “Busy moms love us, because our iCARD Gift Card can be scheduled for delivery on special days,” said Strautman. “That way, several orders can be placed at one time, ensuring that you won’t miss an important birthday, anniversary, graduation or something else. It almost works like your personal assistant.”

Similarly, iCARD’s newest feature is an email and SMS text reminder service. Users can tell they system to remind them about birthdays, anniversaries, and other gift-card-appropriate events. “We make product enhancements all the time,” said Ehney.

“iCARD was one of the first companies to provide online ordering of Visa Gift Cards,” Ehney said. “We made it easy for people to customize the embossing and put a special message on letter that goes with the card. We also made it easy for companies to order hundreds or thousands of cards at one time.”

“iCARD’s pioneering efforts in the industry are to be commended,” said Strautman. “Back in 1998, Visa Gift Cards didn’t exist. Now we supply Visa gift cards, merchant gift cards, restaurant gift cards and emailable gift cards.”

The technology required to support those sales is pretty amazing. iCARD’s innovative ordering system is just the beginning. Consider what it takes to provide customer service for all those cards! “When customers contact us via phone or email, our systems must enable us to look up their order, see what it was charged to, see where it was shipped, see if the cards were activated, and see if the cards have been used,” said Strautman. “That requires backend coordination of multiple databases and adept employees who are eager to please our customers.”

“And then there’s the promotional technology that we use to advertise our products,” said Strautman. “We use Google Adwords to create ads that are triggered by various keywords for which people search. We use an email distribution service to deliver emails to our customers each month. We also use an online public relations news release service to show off our service.”

To consumers, it may just be a valuable piece of plastic in their wallet or purse. Its simplicity of character and use belies the fact that it is a highly sophisticated form of currency, with an incredible amount of technology behind it.