Europe Gift Card Market – Industry Trends and Forecast to 2030

Europe Gift Card Market Analysis and Size

The Europe gift card market is being driven by the use of gift cards as a business tactic is an important driver for the Europe gift card market. Moreover, Extensive social trend of giving online gifts is potentially expected to boost the market growth. However, exploitative gift card practices such as redemption and latency fees is expected to pose a challenge to market growth which may restrain the market growth.

Data Bridge Market Research analyzes that the Europe gift card market is expected to reach USD 896,605.19 million by 2030 from USD 256,857.19 million in 2022, growing with a steady CAGR of 17.2% in the forecast period of 2023 to 2030.

Market Definition

Gift card is an artificial prepaid debit card, which is loaded with a specific amount. It is used for various purposes such as gifting someone and purchasing things. Most consumers including millennials and elder generation have the rising demand for gift cards due to their ease of use and the increasing adoption of smartphone payment technologies.

Europe Gift Card Market Dynamics

This section deals with understanding the market drivers, advantages, opportunities, restraints and challenges. All of this is discussed in detail below:

Drivers

• Rising Use of Gift Cards as a Business Tactic

Various companies are becoming more focused on sustainable relationships with consumers, so that they can meet their target. There are a few benefits of gift cards that can be utilized in business strategies such as they are cost effective and consumers usually spend on gift cards instead of physical gifts. This is because most of individuals have a perception of gift cards amount as free money. So the implementation offers associated with gift cards can actually boost revenue of a company.

Gift cards also can increase traffic at a particular store and organization. As it invests two persons into the process, one is the sender, who is giving the gift card and the second is the recipient who is receiving the gift card. Many a times it happens that gift card got expired, unused and the whole amount goes to the organization. Therefore, utilizing gift cards as a business strategy is an essential and cost effective decision.

• Extensive Social Trend of Giving Online Gifts among Millennials

The gift card industry and digital world are interconnected. Companies are engaging their customers virtually using digital marketing strategies and digital platforms since the gift cards have become prevalent. In recent years, the gift card industry has experienced an improvement in relationships with existing consumers through marketing and digital promotion, rather than expansion through geographic channels and store network expansion. The generation of millennials is shifting towards the e-gift cards rapidly. With this shift the adoption of e-gift cards among older generation will be increasing as well. In addition, online platforms and channels for shopping are expected to create opportunities for market growth.

Opportunities

• Growing Internet and Smartphone Penetration Worldwide

The growing popularity of e-commerce enables the user to use gift cards easily and explore more products with easy purchases. One of the most innovative field of technology in gift card market is the introduction of smartphone technology. The benefits of e-gift cards using smartphone technology in payment method enables a wide range of consumer base who can provide growth to the market with enormous opportunities. Continuous launches and announcements in the segment of mobile wallet gift cards and e-gift cards and their increasing trend can lead the Europe gift card market to face an extreme growth in the near future. E-Gift cards considered a good alternative form of payment if any consumer has lack of cash to pay for a product, as they can be transferred digitally if the recipient lives in longer distance from the sender of the gift cards. Thus, these benefits are creating preference of e-gift cards and companies are launching new products which can lead the Europe gift card market to grow.

• Strategic Alliances to Increase Company’s Business Penetration

Strategic alliances are a key staple in business strategies to achieve a competitive advantage and abate competitors from moving on a marketplace. A successful strategic alliance is critical to the success of a core business goal and also helps in mitigating a significant risk to the business. Alliances helps in providing access to the market with a solution that wouldn’t have been possible for either company on their own. With the right alliance, partners can outspace the competiton with new solutions. This helps in scaling up the production and build innovative solutions for their customers, entering new markets, pool valuable expertise, and resources.

Restraints/Challenges

• Exploitative Gift Card Practices such as Redemption and Latency Fees

A gift card is an alternative method of payment that customers can use to make payments at various locations such as retail stores, restaurants, gas stations, and others. Money can be added to the card, and spent at the accepted premises. Gift cards comes with many advantages for the customers. They are more convenient and better substitute of hard cash but still have some disadvantages. Due to these negative factors, the growth of the Europe gift card market can be hampered.

Exploitative practices such as latency fees and redemption fees can affect the market negatively. Some gift cards issuers impose redemption fees when the card is used. These are the charges deducted from the card’s balance. It results in reducing the value of gift card and discourage recipients from utilizing them completely. For the consumers, it creates a negative experience and lessen their trust in gift card system. It is likely a possibility that customers will buy or accept gift cards less, if they perceive that their gift card is subjected to some hidden charges.

• Security Concerns Such as Hacking and Fraud Associated with the Gift Cards

The majority of gift cards have a service life of up to a few years and are intended for short- to medium-amount purchases. Despite a wide preference for gift cards, a few issues associated with security are also there. With the increasing amount of revenue generating from using stored value cards or gift cards the security problems associated with gift cards are also increasing such as hacking issues and lack of security for the money.

Hackers can access the gift card by directly going to the website where the consumer is accessing their gift cards. This can be done by using botnet attack which provide the hackers millions of combinations of gift card account number and stolen PIN or password by which the hacker can login to the online gift card and load the money to their account.

Recent Developments

• In October, 2022 Givex Corporation announced to open a gift card marketplace inside Cittamobi’s digital wallet. This initiative for the new partnership is for sales of gift cards for iFood, which is the leasing Latin American online food delivery service. This partnership between the Europe fintech company helps the company to expand their business and scale up their revenues
• In July 2022, Apple Inc. has extended the availability of its universal Gift Card to the UK, France, and select European countries, following its introduction in the U.S. in 2020 and subsequent release in Australia and Canada. The new card replaces previous App Store and Apple Store cards, streamlining the purchasing process. Recipients can use the universal Gift Card for any item across Apple's online or physical stores. This will help the company in strengthening their presence in the European countries

Europe Gift Card Market Scope

The Europe gift card market is categorized into four notable segment, on the basis of product, functional attribute, industry vertical, and merchant. The growth amongst these segments will help you analyze major growth segments in the industries and provide the users with a valuable market overview and market insights to help them make strategic decisions for identifying core market applications.

Product

• E-Gift Cards
• Physical Cards

On the basis of product, the market is segmented into e-gift cards and physical cards.

Functional Attribute

• Closed Loop
• Universal Accepted Open Loop
• E-Gifting

On the basis of functional attribute, the market is segmented into closed loop, universal accepted open loop, and e-gifting.

Industry Vertical

• Retail
• Corporate Institutions

On the basis of industry vertical, the market is segmented into retail and corporate institutions.

Merchant

• Restaurants
• Discount Stores
• Coffee Shops
•  Departmental Store
• Grocery Store/Food Supermarkets
•  Entertainment
• Others

On the basis of merchant, the market is segmented into restaurants, discount stores, coffee shops, departmental store, grocery store/food supermarkets, entertainment and others.

Europe Gift Card Market Regional Analysis/Insights

The Europe gift card market is analyzed and market size insights and trends are provided by country, product, functional attribute, industry vertical, and merchant as referenced above.

The countries covered in the Europe gift card market report are Germany, France, Italy, Spain, U.K., Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and Rest of Europe.

Germany is expected to dominate the Europe gift card market because gift cards are gaining rapid popularity among consumers in the country.

The country section of the report also provides individual market impacting factors and changes in market regulation that impact the current and future trends of the market. Data points like down-stream and upstream value chain analysis, technical trends and porter's five forces analysis, case studies are some of the pointers used to forecast the market scenario for individual countries. Also, the presence and availability of regional brands and their challenges faced due to large or scarce competition from local and domestic brands, impact of domestic tariffs and trade routes are considered while providing forecast analysis of the country data.

Competitive Landscape and Europe Gift Card Market Share Analysis

The Europe gift card market competitive landscape provides details by competitor. Details included are company overview, company financials, revenue generated, market potential, investment in research and development, new market initiatives, regional presence, production sites and facilities, production capacities, company strengths and weaknesses, product launch, product width and breadth, application dominance. The above data points provided are only related to the companies' focus on the market.

Some of the major players operating in the Europe gift card market are PayPal, Apple Inc.,Starbucks Coffee Company, Blackhawk Network, American Express, Walmart Inc., Under Armour, Inc., AMILON S.R.L., Diggecard, Jigsaw Business Solutions, Givex Corporation, Sephora USA, Inc., and Huuray A/S, among others.

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