Mobile gift-card management company Gyft today announced discounts for users of alternative payment methods, such as bitcoins and PayPal.
Gyft’s platform allows users to gather gift cards into one mobile app, which can then be used to make purchases at the point of sale or online. This technology is reminiscent of Wallaby’s, which collects credit card payment information from multiple cards into one card, but is solely focused on prepaid gift cards. The platform is also a sales venue where users can browse and buy cards. Over 200 retailers and 100,000 stores are represented on the Gyft platform.
Gyft announced the rewards platform, called Gyft Points, at Finovate Asia in Singapore today. It also announced Gyft Registry, where users can create gift-card wish lists to share with friends.
The use of points with gift cards is unusual, and signals the growing importance of gift cards, particularly around the end of the year. The market was estimated at $29 billion per year by the National Retail Foundation in November 2012. “Gift cards are everyone’s favorite gift,” Gyft CEO and co-founder Vinny Lingham told Bank innovation.
Gyft also announced today that it is offering 1% value back to those buying gift cards with credit cards, 2% to those paying with PayPal, and 3% to those paying with bitcoins.
Gyft is moving toward a more brand-intensive business model with Gyft Points, and is looking to get more visibility for its service. Its use of bitcoins has achieved that among the small but passionate pool of bitcoin users, members of which praise Gyft in large numbers in online forums such as Reddit.
Gyft launched in 2012 and accepted bitcoins as payment from the start. “There are users who live on bitcoins, they want to pay in bitcoins,” Lingham said. “There is a lot of stored value there for them.”
Bitcoins’ volatility is proverbial. Two weeks ago one bitcoin was worth around $200. At press time its value was more than $400. Lingham, who suggested that the price of bitcoins would eventually stabilize around 1/$1000, insists bitcoin users are unswayed by frequent value fluctuations and still enjoy transacting in the currency.
“As the price keeps going up, they still use it,” Lingham said of bitcoin users. “People get used to using it. We just had a record month of bicoin usage. The price kept going up, and we saw increased spending, up and up.”
Lingham described bitcoin users as “85% male. They tend to be 18 to 44 [years old].”
Gyft, based in San Francisco, received $5 million in funding in August 2013 in a round led by Karlin Ventures.