1. UK Consumer Attitudes Towards
Gift Card Industry Regulation

2. Executive Summary
• The UK gift cards and vouchers sector is worth over £4.5billion
• 52% of that market is made up of B2B sales.
• A significant 94% of that market is unregulated, which means
employers that use gift cards as rewards and incentives are at risk of
being stuck with large values of gift cards that might be worthless if
the chosen retailer was to fall into administration.
• Most notably the latest Personnel Today Employee Incentive survey
has revealed a 1/3 of all HR managers believe that their Incentive
budget is at risk

3. The Survey
• In light of recent retail collapses, One4all Rewards in partnership with
YouGov conducted research in March 2013 to gain insight in to UK
Consumer attitudes towards gift card regulation.
• The survey – undertaken for multi-retailer gift card provider One4all
– shows that when asked to consider the recent collapse of high
street retailers and the concerns about gift cards losing value, two-
fifths (40%) of people would not feel confident spending money on
the cards at the moment.
• This follows consumers facing problems using gift cards after stores
such as Jessops and HMV went into administration.

4. Safeguarding Consumer Funds
 The YouGov poll, commissioned by The Gift Voucher Shop and surveying
2031 people, found that..
of people would feel more confident purchasing a
gift card if they knew the money was safeguarded
in the event of retail collapse.
78%

5. Consumers call for gift card protection

6. Loss of Confidence
• The collapse of high street retailers has raised legitimate questions
about whether their store gift cards would be honoured, resulting
in a loss of confidence in the sector.
of respondents also said that they did
not know that regulated gift card
options were available.
91%

7. Who is Regulated?
• Legislation already exists to protect the funds held on gift cards,
but compliance is not mandatory.
• As a consequence, few retailers have opted to bring their single-
retailer gift cards within the scheme to give greater security and
reassurance to their customers.
• In the UK market, only multi-retailer gift cards such as One4all
give consumers this protection.

8. Reassurance of Regulated Products
• This is a strong message to the industry that the public believe
greater consumer protection is needed in order to restore
confidence in the gift card market.
• Regulated products bring clear benefits to consumers, giving them
the reassurance that they won’t be left out of pocket in the event
of a retailer collapsing.

9. No Knowledge of Regulation
• Although legislation to protect funds held on gift cards in the
UK currently exists, compliance is not mandatory for all gift
card types.
Britons do not know
that regulated gift cards
are available
think all gift cards should
be protected in the face of
a retailer entering
administration.
91% 86%

10. Government Lead Solution
• Half (50%) of people think that any strengthening of regulations
should be led by both the government and the retail industry.
• This is compared to less than a quarter (24%) who think it should
be led by the retail industry alone and only 12% who think it
should be led by the government alone.

11. Overview of the Solution
• Multi-retailer gift cards like the One4all gift card, are a fantastic
way to reward and incentivise staff as they offer such a great
choice to employees.
• They also offer security to any HR manager that their investment
is protected, but only if they choose a regulated product.
If they don’t, they risk losing millions of pounds of their
budgets and potentially damaging relationships with
their employees.

12. The Benefits of Multi-retail
• However, given the same scenario, over two-thirds (69%) of
people say they would feel more confident purchasing gift cards
that can be used across a variety of retailers, rather than one that
can be used in a single store.
• Confidence rises to over three-quarters (78%) if people know their
money is safe should a chain go into receivership.