Mercator Advisory Group’s new Research Report, Retail Gift Card Trends in the United States: 2013 in Review, documents the dollars loaded in 2013 onto closed-loop prepaid cards or prepaid account access devices issued by retailers. In the past, the segments in this report were included in Mercator Advisory Group’s closed-loop market assessments. While this segment has shown steady growth over the past decade, 2013 saw the market decline. Retailers took advantage of new technologies in 2013 and loads on virtual and mobile cards began to grow after three years of relative quiet. Loads onto incentives cards reveal that the declines were not felt evenly across the industry.

1. Retail Gift Card Trends in the United States:
2013 in Review
May 2014

2. 2014 Mercator Advisory Group
Mercator Advisory Group’s new Research Report, Retail Gift Card
Trends in the United States: 2013 in Review, documents the
dollars loaded in 2013 onto closed-loop prepaid cards or prepaid
account access devices issued by retailers. In the past, the
segments in this report were included in Mercator Advisory Group’s
closed-loop market assessments. While this segment has shown
steady growth over the past decade, 2013 saw the market decline.
Retailers took advantage of new technologies in 2013 and loads on
virtual and mobile cards began to grow after three years of relative
quiet. Loads onto incentives cards reveal that the declines were not
felt evenly across the industry.
Retail Gift Card Trends in the United States:
2013 in Review

3. 2014 Mercator Advisory Group
This year, in order to deliver data in a more timely fashion, Mercator
Advisory Group is writing reports on individual segments as data
becomes available. For example, government data typically
becomes available later in the year, while retailers have their data
earlier in the year. Retailers have asked to receive surveys and the
resulting reports earlier in the year to help them with benchmarking
and planning. Mercator Advisory Group plans to develop estimates
for all the market segments we have consistently followed over the
past 10 years.
In the past, Mercator Advisory Group published distribution
information for prepaid cards as a separate report. The report
released today includes distribution information along with load
information for retailer-issued cards. All the charts and tables in this
report represent the percentage of total loads, whether the cards
were issued for direct-from-consumer loads or as incentives or other
business-to-business purposes.
Retail Gift Card Trends in the United States:
2013 in Review

4. 2014 Mercator Advisory Group
• Decline of the closed-loop, In-Store gift segment in 2013 due to the
underperformance of certain retail segments
• Consistent performance of the incentives segments, indicating that not
all retail segments suffered a decline
• Information on the distribution channels used by issuers, with retailers
continuing to see steady load volumes through card malls even as
business-to-business and Internet loads fluctuate
• Signs of growth of virtual card load volumes in 2013 after years of
hovering around 2%
• Mobile card loads are beginning to show up in Mercator Advisory
Group’s survey of gift card issuers in the United States. They remain
small, but card buyers are becoming aware of mobile gift cards.
• Reloads continuing as a percentage of total volume above 10%
Highlights of the Report

5. Figure 7: The Main Prepaid Distribution Channels
PREPAID CARD ISSUER
(retailer, restaurant, GPR issuer, content provider)
OWN
B2B
SALES
EMPLOYEE/
CLIENT/
CONSUMER
CORPORATE
BUYER
THIRD-PARTY
DISTRIBUTOR/
PPD CARD MALLS
CONSUMER
THIRD-PARTY
RETAILER
WEB
AGGREGATOR/
DISTRIBUTOR
CONSUMER
INTERNAL CHANNELS EXTERNAL CHANNELS
SOCIAL MEDIA
WEBSITE
CONSUMER
OWN
RETAIL
OUTLETS
CONSUMER
OWN
WEBSITE
CONSUMER
OWN
MOBILE
CHANNEL
CONSUMER
PARTNER
MOBILE
PLATFORM
CONSUMER
(EXTERNAL CHANNEL)
Source: Mercator Advisory Group
© 2014 Mercator Advisory Group

6. About the Full Report
2014 Mercator Advisory Group
This report contains 22 pages and 14 exhibits.
Companies mentioned in this report include: Blackhawk
Network, Cardpool, Coinstar, Dunkin Brands, Gift Card
Rescue, Gyft, InComm, MCX, Plastic Jungle, Starbucks Coffee Co., Wrapp
Members of Mercator Advisory Group’s Prepaid Advisory Group have
access to this report as well as the upcoming research for the year
ahead, presentations, analyst access and other membership benefits.
Please visit us online at www.mercatoradvisorygroup.com.
For more information and media inquiries, please call Mercator Advisory Group's
main line: (781) 419-1700, send e-mail to info@mercatoradvisorygroup.com.
For free industry news, opinions, research, company information and more visit
us at www.PaymentsJournal.com.
Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/MercatorAdvisor.

7. About Mercator Advisory Group
Mercator Advisory Group is the leading independent research and
advisory services firm exclusively focused on the payments and
banking industries. We deliver pragmatic and timely research and
advice designed to help our clients uncover the most lucrative
opportunities to maximize revenue growth and contain costs.
Our clients range from the world's largest payment
issuers, acquirers, processors, merchants and associations to leading
technology providers and investors. Mercator Advisory Group is also
the publisher of the online payments and banking news and information
portal PaymentsJournal.com.
2014 Mercator Advisory Group