“Gift Cards are perfect for last minute gifting”

The art of Gift giving has been a tradition across cultures. Confusions, doubts, uncertainties often cloud minds while purchasing gifts. To make the process simpler, QwikCilver Soluions has pioneered a unique Gift card technology for smart Indian customers. With Gift cards of fixed price value issued by a retailer, buyers can easily present them to their friends , families or even clients in place of a physical product or cold cash. One can say, it is replacing gift vouchers of last decade. To delve a little deeper into their partners and programs, Pratap TP, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer, QwikCilver Solutions helped gain insight.

Founded in 2008-09, the company has grown significantly to command a 90% market share in the Gift card category. It is growing at the rate of 120% year on year. The B2B corporates across large enterprises and SMEs have been the largest adopters of the service and solutions, with over 70% of consumption in these segments.

Trying to be Popular

QwikCilver's channel strategy was structured to Go-to-market directly in the initial stages nationally. This was to explore, test, pilot and prove the novel concept across the Top 100 corporate enterprise customers in India. Since then, the channel strategy has been scaled up to increase the distribution spread to Tier 1, Tier2 and Tier 3 markets and customers through direct partners in India and overseas.

"Subsequent to the successful deployments of the QwikCilver Gift Card Technology Product Suite by the direct Go To Market strategy, the channel partner network has been re-branded and enhanced with the GiftBig Gift Card channel network to include SMEs, large corporate enterprises, social media Facebook Gifting platform and ecommerce portals, resellers, rewards Partners, HR Consultancies," adds Pratap TP. The Southern region has performed quickest in adopting the channel partner network till date. On the enterprise network, the NCR & Mumbai regions have been quick to adopt the product platform. The network currently has seen the adoption of over 4 million cards across 10,000 points of sale for more than 100 leading brand partners.

Gift Now!

GiftBig Insta-Gift is the revolutionary Instant gifting solution pioneered by QwikCilver with numerous advantages to both the retailers and the end-consumers. It is the e-tailing brand portal also known as India's first fully integrated online gift card mall. GiftBig Insta-Gift Cards can be ordered online and can be redeemed immediately by the recipient at the nearest brand outlet or online website. It allows the consumer to add a personal text message and a photo to the E-gift card. These are perfect for last minute gifting. E-Gift Cards are virtual gifts, so much faster than the actual Gifts that involve courier and handling logistics. Lastly, E-Gift Cards are an environmentally friendly gift choice. "Our study shows that 65% of E-gift cards are redeemed within a month of purchase," says Pratap TP.

The GiftBig InstaGifts Program is a unique differentiator that has been launched exclusively by QwikCilver. Insta-Gifts are E-Gift cards that are delivered to the recipient instantaneously via e-mail.

 

Partners for growth

QwikCilver's partners are fundamentally organizations that address the IT POS systems for retailers, Technology solutions for HR, Rewards and Gifting Portfolio for corporate & retail enterprises. The Insta-Gifts are often powered for retailers on the existing Gift card platform. Some of the partner brands for whom Insta-Gifts solution has been powered by QwikCilver include names like Café Coffee Day, Fastrack, Flipkart, Titan, Peter England, myntra.com, Jabong.com and many more. "Retailers who have adopted the QwikCilver Gift Card platform have been able to drive 40% increased footfalls from a new base of consumers who were hitherto unaware of the brand, 200% uplift in sales revenue and increased sales of their premium product range," adds Pratap TP.

Educating Partners

The Partner is provided the appropriate technology product platform to enable them to launch their Prepaid card Program, Virtual Gift Card programs and mobile-based Card Programs - all of which can be launched and managed seamlessly by QwikCilver on its GiftBig Portfolio. "We provide the needed hands on training to the teams across sales kits, service level support, technical training and helpdesk availability to make the partnership a long term success for all stakeholders in the QwikCilver ecosystem," adds Pratap TP.

Looking Ahead

Being the leader focused on pioneering a new segment in India QwikCilver has been impacted by the importance of being the category driver in India. "Our thought leadership initiatives have helped in establishing trust, credibility and acceptance of our product suite as the most robust platform by over 200 leading corporate customers," adds Pratap TP. The thought leadership activities address B2B segments through Round Tables, Gift Card Technology sponsorships of Retail Forums & HR Forums; Online Marketing for Gift Card consumers and corporate with pertinent Digital marketing campaigns. No doubt, there are various providers of specific services in the market. QwikCilver is the only end to end solution provider across all touchpoints for their unique category. For the current year QwikCilver Solutions is looking at a 300 percent growth. The company is at a current total turnover of Rs. 400 crore across the country and is aiming a turnover of Rs. 1000 Crore.