Check out the expected growth in holiday gift cards sales for this holiday season. I’m a huge fan of gift cards – both giving and receiving – so it comes as no surprise.

And I love how retailers are making it easy to buy gift cards just about anywhere you can imagine. This past Father’s Day I really wanted to get my Dad a gift card to BestBuy but I had run out of time so I decided I would simply insert a cheque into a card and suggest he treat himself to something at BestBuy. So I proceeded to Shoppers Drug Mart to buy the card and voila…to my delight they had a whole display of gift cards for a wide variety of retailers INCLUDING BestBuy! Yes, they were reselling some popular retail gift cards and they were doing it right beside the greeting cards! The convenience of this was awesome!

But for retailers who have an online presence – keep pushing gift cards online! According to eMarketer’s stats from last year’s holiday season (I should work for these guys since I reference their stats so often), about 1 out of every 4 gift card purchases were purchased online!

I know when I’m looking to buy something for someone online, I’m always thrilled to go for the gift card. Not everyone knows the convenience of gift cards so smart retailers have to take notice of things like long visits or deep visits that aren’t translating into sales the way they should. Here at Sitebrand, I personalization can come to the rescue. What am I talking about?

Over the holidays, you can expect lots of browsing. If people are hanging around for too long, it might mean they’re not sure what they’re looking for. The typical personalization campaign might message something that says: “Can’t find what you’re looking for? Try our handy search tool!”

But over the holidays, this messaging could be alternated with: “Can’t find that perfect gift? Give a gift card instead!”

Why risk someone giving up and venturing off to another site!? Save the sale with a push on gift cards!

Just another random thought of the day…