Marketing

Restaurant gift card revenue up

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February 28, 2023

Inflation is having an impact on gift cards in the restaurant industry, with revenue up 6% year over year though the total cards sold is down 2%.

Those are findings from a Paytronix Restaurant Gift Card Report: 2023 which stated that while restaurants have moved on from the pandemic, inflation is having an impact.

Another top finding is that guests are spending more by purchasing higher-value cards, according to a press release.

"Gift card purchasing appears to mirror that of loyalty guests. Our research shows that loyalty guests' checks match inflation. From the beginning of 2020 to the present day, restaurant loyalty guest check size grew in tandem with menu prices," Paytronix Strategy and Analytics Director Kirstin Lynch said in the release.

While some of the change can also be attributed to customer preference and an overall shift in consumer behavior from quick-service restaurants to full-service restaurants, some is driven by restaurant marketers.

"Brands themselves may be influencing the trend of higher value cards by only selling higher-value cards or by making lower value cards less available," Lynch said in the release.

Additional findings include:

• Average dollars loaded per gift card increased 8% from 2021.
• Digital cards outperformed physical cards in terms of value, with the average digital card loaded $82 more at a fine-dining establishment than a comparable physical card.
• Third-party retail sales grew, while in-store sales dropped, indicating a channel shift.

"Fine-dining gift card sales have not only recovered completely from the pandemic, they've also been the only concept to see an increase over 2019 numbers. This indicates a channel shift in consumer preferences — as guests emerge from the pandemic, they prefer to gift experiences at fine-dining establishments," Lynch said in the release.

The Paytronix strategy and analytics team analyzed over 35 million gift card transactions worth over $2.2 billion to access the data found in the Paytronix Restaurant Gift Card Report: 2023.