We started out in the year 2008 with dreams of revolutionizing the gifting landscape, and since then, we’ve come a long way both in India and abroad owing to our future-ready technology solutions. As the pioneers in the gift card space, we have been bringing to you the one of its kind “Qwikcilver Gift Card Conclave” for the last 3 years. This has become the platform to where we get to learn, discuss and share meaningful insights and strategic learnings from our partners who are some of India’s biggest retail brands. The third and the latest Indian edition of Qwikcilver Gift Card Conclave which was held in Bengaluru in April 2019, witnessed various stalwarts from the gift card industry as well as leading business practitioners from across Asia-Pacific discussing the growing adoption of gift cards and its exciting future.
After the stupendous success of the conclave in India, it was time for the Conclave to expand its reach and we took it the Gift Card Conclave to Singapore! South East Asia is a growing market and ready to be led into the Gift Card revolution. A technologically advanced market like the one in Singapore is familiar with, gift cards, yet there is space for more innovation Qwilcilver with its future ready Gift Card technology is ready to lead that innovation. We have been present in Singapore and the rest of South East Asia since 2017.
Agrowth of e-gift cards, just like how they’ve taken the Indian market by storm. This set the context for the main theme of the Conclave- “Gifting Re-imagined”.
The Gift Card Conclave was a successful and enriching event, with attendance from renowned brands like Grab, Lazada, NETS, Valiram Group, Capitaland, Frasers Group, Lulu Group, Sephora, Luxasia, EdgePRI, AXS Pte Limited, WOGI, and Uniqgift. The main objective of the Conclave in Singapore was to share all the best practices that we’ve had with Gift cards in different regions, with different merchants and distributors. The idea was to change the South East Asian markets’ perspective on Gift Cards- that it is beyond just gifting.
There was a riveting talk by our CEO and Co-Founder, Mr. Kumar Sudarshan. He shared that the adoption of gift cards, especially digital gift cards has been phenomenal in India. Then he moved on to emphasize on how the concept of the Gift Card can be adapted by not just the end consumer for direct gifting, but also by brands to increase the loyalty among consumers and by companies as an attractive employee reward program and corporate gifting.
“The B2B category has been driving the growth of digital gift cards in India, majorly through reward programs, channel promotions and consumer promotions. We are expecting to see the same trend in the South East Asian market too.”, quoted Mr. Sudarshan.
“The technology is not going to work unless the partner, the retailer or the banker, any business funding the card is not going to give something meaningful to the consumer.” pointed out Mr. Mukesh Valiram, Executive Director of Valiram Group. To overcome the challenge of clutter in the gift card space, the key is to use the channel to drive incremental business and think about the uplift in a marketing context.
There was an insightful presentation by Mr. Dileep Kannan, regional director of GRAB for Business. GRAB is a Singapore based technology company offering transportation services, food delivery, and payment solutions. It has recently partnered with Qwikcilver for its Gift Cards. Mr. Kannan shared that since the gift card market in South East Asia alone was 2.5-3 Bn dollars, it only made sense to venture into this space. The decision came through when corporate houses, especially E-commerce companies started to approach GRAB requesting for their “promo codes” as a gift to their employees, trade partners, salespeople, and the end consumer.
The highlight of the conclave was the panel discussion on “Mapping the Digitized World” which was carried out between Mr. Raman Arora, Head, Omni Channel & Technology, Luxasia, Mr John Jess - Managing Director- Asia, EdgePRI, Ms Katherine Chua - Asst Chief Client, Officer AXS Pte Ltd, Mr. Viktor Atanasov - CEO & Founder, WOGI and Ms. Nicole Seah - Chief Operating Officer - Rewardz Pte Ltd. It was discussed how a lot of things have changed in the past 3 years and now slowly and surely, all the focus is pushing to digital as the enterprises are realizing the hassles of procuring, storing and delivering physical gift vouchers. There is a change in behavior of the recipient of the gift card as well, as they have started accepting digital rewards.
The conference was well able to establish the role of the changing digital landscape in the gift card space. The use of gift cards is becoming a lot easier with the advent of digital technology, proving to be convenient not just for individuals but for companies and enterprises as well. Digital gift cards are much more accessible, safer option than physical vouchers and can be delivered instantly online. They can be stored on the phone and used anytime. Another big advantage of digital cards for brands is that they are highly scalable and yet much easier to handle logistically as compared with physical cards.
The success of the conclave reaffirmed our belief that the South East Asian market will quickly adapt to technological innovations in the Gift card segment and Qwikcilver is ready to lead that innovation. We are anticipating exciting times ahead!