Canadians love gift cards, but many are leaving money on the table.
According to a new Ipsos survey for Ugo Mobile Solutions, one-third of respondents said they leave unspent money on their gift cards, including 47% of young adults.
Those who misplace their cards estimate they lose an average of $47 each year, while those who stop using their cards before they’re maxed out leave an average of $5 unspent on each card.
The survey was released for the launch of Ugo’s new gift card capability on its digital wallet, which lets consumers store select credit cards and loyalty cards on their smartphones. With the new feature, users can pay with gift cards stored on their smartphones and track unspent money on each card.
The gift card addition addresses the two main reasons people leave money unspent: 15% of consumers forget to bring the right card when shopping, and 23% forget how much money is left to spend, according to the survey.
“Canadians are real utilizers of gift cards: upwards of three quarters of Canadians like to send and receive gift cards,” said Salim Jivraj, COO of Ugo Mobile Solutions.
But since many consumers leave money unspent, “there is an opportunity to bring them into the digital space,” he added. “It comes down to providing a convenience mechanism for consumers to be able to [fully use] those gift cards.”
To add gift cards, consumers who have downloaded the Ugo Wallet app simply take a picture of the gift card. Ugo then generates a digital version of the bar code, which can be presented at the point of sale. If merchants don’t have bar code scanners (most do, said Jivraj), they can manually enter the gift card number.
Ugo was launched in 2013 and is a partnership between TD Bank and PC Financial.
