Steve Burns
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) Gift cards remain a reliable option for last-minute shopping that’s convenient, easy to send, and just the right amount of personalization.
“We see the market this year hitting about $130 billion this year,” said Brian Riley with the CEB Group. “That’s about 6.3% over 2014,” and he expects sales to keep rising 6-10% over the next few years.
“As technologies around financial services have evolved, these have really latched onto that pretty well,” Riley said. An ever-increasing amount of gift cards are sold and distributed online, Riley said.
“They’re very convenient. I don’t really have to put a lot of effort into deciding what a gift can be for a particular party,” Riley said.
About .75% of a gift card’s balance is left unspent, Riley said, and that has gone down recently. “People have become a lot more conscious about that. As we’ve gone through the Recession, people have been more inclined to squeeze that value out.”
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