Stored Value Solutions last week announced an agreement with World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. to provide both regular and promotional prepaid gift cards. Stored Value both issues the cards and processes the card transactions.
Consumers can purchase the proprietary cards at World Wrestling’s Web site and only use them to initiate purchases from the site. The cards are available in denominations of $10, $25, $50, $75 and $100. World Wrestling charges $2 for standard shipping.
“The initial plan for the first part of the rollout was to only have online acceptance,” says Keith Sorrels, Stored Value senior vice president of sales. Sorrels is not aware of World Wrestling’s future plans for the cards.
World Wrestling did not provide immediate comment about the agreement, but Sorrels says the company had wanted to offer a gift card for some time. “They really wanted to use something that would help drive additional sales and additional customers, and that’s pretty much what gift card programs are intended to do,” he tells PaymentsSource.
The wrestling organization can use the promotional gift cards to help encourage consumers to buy merchandise, Sorrels says. “We’re seeing [other merchants] do promotions like, ‘buy $100 worth of [merchandise] or gift cards and you’ll get a $25 gift card for free,’” he adds. World Wrestling has no such promotions at the time, according to its Web site.
Promotional gift cards are gaining traction with merchants because of the struggling economy, Sorrels says. “The economy has put everybody in a real tough spot, and this is a way to drive customer traffic through stores, restaurants, entertainment venues and entities like [World Wrestling],” he adds.
