Gift Cards Article in New York Times

Gift Cards Spending Dips but still well over 59 billion

New York Times confirms poularity of gift cards

Last Sunday's New York Times featured an article on just how massive the gift cards industry has become. Spending on gift cards this year will drop a bit but the amount will still be well over 59 billion dollars.

Gift Cards have proven to be a foolproof and very convenient way to give! Gift Cards usage will only grow in the future. Please see a snippet from the Times article below:

Just to put the numbers that we’re talking about in perspective, the TowerGroup, a research and advisory firm, projects that $59.9 billion will be spent on gift cards linked to a specific restaurant or retailer this year.

That compares with $70 billion that consumers spent on the cards last year. This is the first year that spending actually went down since 2001, when gift cards became widely available, said Brian Riley, a senior analyst with TowerGroup.

Spending on gift cards from financial institutions, like MasterCard or Visa, is expected to rise, however, to $28.5 billion from $27 billion, TowerGroup said.