Gift Card Galore! Research says the Card still is needed! @SVMRewards

At #SHRM13 I had the pleasure to meet with Jim Speir, who is Vice President of Sales for SVM and I learned a lot about employee programs.

Show me the money

They had just completed a very interesting survey - which found that 91% of those surveyed still enjoy receiving a physical gift card - they enjoy the tangible aspect of it, and the fact that there is a presentation of the recognition (e.g. your boss in a meeting of the department). What was even more interesting is out of the type of promotional goods that employees ranked - the last place was Trophies. Basically, employees now like all of the benefits of the trophies (the hoopla, etc.) but they also want the discretionary income.. I chuckled when they explained this to me - as I had recently told my Boss that I work for Gift Cards...

The Challenge - which Gift Cards?

I asked Jim, what sort of evolution is occurring in the market and he shared with me the SVM Card. They wanted to figure out a way to allow the employee to pick the Gift Card they want, and somehow find a way for folks to give out physical cards. What they came up with is a really cool serialized card that allows the Manager to present them with a card with a set value (e.g. $25, $50) and then the employee can convert that online to the card that they want.

Cool Factoids and Benchmarks:

I asked Jim, since he sees all of the data showing employee purchasing trends, what results he is seeing.

1. Without a single pause - he said Gas Cards are still the number one seller. 
2. Average award presentation is $43 - which is a mix between the $25 and $50 award. 

How good is this info? 

SVM is a privately held company, and apparently is one of the quiet giants. Their sales are well north of 500 Million, and one of the largest resellers of gift cards in industry. I had no idea this market was so big!