IMGCAP(1)]
Nine large retailers, including Amazon.com Inc., Home Depot Inc. and Subway, which is owned by franchisees and operated by Doctor's Associates Inc., have become the founding members of the Retail Gift Card Association.
The association plans to create a list of best practices for retailers that sell closed-loop gift cards, lobby in Congress for the gift card industry, and collect and share information on gift card trends, Carman Wenkoff, association co-president, tells Prepaid Trends.
The retailers formed the association mainly to collect information because they want more accurate trend data for the closed-loop gift card market, says Wenkoff, who also is president of ValuePay Services LLC, a gift card manager and card issuer owned by Subway franchisees that handles Subway gift and loyalty cards.
"Depending on where you read it from, there is a huge difference" in the estimates of the number of gift cards sold and the volume of dollars loaded onto them, Wenkoff says.
In September, 36 retailers met in Chicago to approve the formation of the association, he says.
It plans to begin accepting memberships in January and initially will be based in Miami.
