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Fact #1

• According to CEB TowerGroup, propelling gift card sales past the $100 billion mark is due to an increase in open loop gift card purchases. Such as those offered by American Express, Visa, Mastercard and Discover ($40 billion), restaurant gift cards ($19 billion) and merchant gift cards ($36 billion).
• By the year 2015, gift cards are expected to deliver $138 billion in sales

Fact #2

• According to the National Retail Federation, this is the highest amount recorded in the survey’s ten year history.
• The number one reason shoppers buy gift cards is because they allow the recipient to select their own gift. More than one in five (22%) gift givers say they’ll buy gift cards because they are easier and faster than traditional gifts.

Fact #3

• As in previous years, men plan to spend significantly more on gift cards than women. Men shell out an average of $172.92 on gift cards during the holiday season versus women’s $141.66.
• According to the National Retail Federation, consumers spend an average of $43.75 on each gift card they purchase.

Fact #4

• The steady rise of demand for McDonald’s gift cards has landed the fast food chain in the “Top 5 Most Wanted Gift Cards” for the first time. Other than McDonalds, the annual “Top 5” list has remained consistent.
• Click here to read our official press release, along with the “Top 20 Most Wanted Gift Cards of 2012.”

• While electronic gift card sales have increased since tracking began in 2010, sales in 2012 reflected to be slower than initially projected.
• According to CEB TowerGroup, 75 percent of consumers will spend the full amount of money on the card and 30 percent will spend $25 more than the value of the card. This is helping to lower spillage, which is the amount of money left on the gift card that a consumer never spends, to $1.7 billion.

Click here to view our official press release for the “Top 5 Gift Cards Facts for 2012″