By Simon Birch – Head of Retail, Appreciate Group March is the month of year-end for Appreciate Group. It’s when we reflect on the year, bring accounts to a close and chase outstanding sales quotes, to ensure that budgets are beaten, and targets exceeded. This year was no different. Business as usual. All channels to […]
Read more >By Caroline Watson – Managing Director, Voucherline.com, TheGiftCardCentre.co.uk & Reward Panda.co.uk These are just a few of the objections I have listened to in my nearly 25-year-old career in the world of gift vouchers, then gift cards and now digital too. I am a passionate old salesperson and marketeer. I remember when I started selling newspaper […]
Read more >By Ben Jones – Partner & Affiliate Director, Sodexo Engage 2020 has been a bit of a bumpy ride, to say the least, and the spread of Covid-19 is unsettling for so many of us. It’s having a huge impact on our general wellbeing, with many of us worrying about our health, families, finances and […]
Read more >Experiences were unfortunate enough to find themselves in the eye of the Coronavirus storm. Shuttered indefinitely, the industry showed immense resilience and creativity to ride out lockdown and get itself ‘new normal’ ready. Now poised to reopen, the future looks bright despite uncertainty. While people adjusted remarkably to a lot of things staying at home, […]
Read more >By Matt Howe – Managing Director, Blackhawk Network, Europe It’s fair to say that 2020 probably isn’t the year that many of us imagined. I still find the interruption to our daily lives fascinating – to have gone from a bustling world of activity to a completely new normal in as little as four months […]
Read more >By Adam Hobbs – VP Global Supply, WeGift Moving rapidly towards month four of working from home and the latest buzzword – “the new normal” has definitely taken over. I took the opportunity to review the last four months to see what impact Covid19 has had on our market, our industries and our partners. As […]
Read more >By Steve Leigh – PR Agency One You could be forgiven for thinking that 15th June had become England’s National Queuing Day as news crews lined up to interview people who had been camped out since the early hours. Even more remarkable was what they were queuing for – not a limited-edition Nike trainer or […]
Read more >By Jackie Barker – Consultant, Barker Consultancy Ltd Cast your mind back to 4th March at a hotel near the Tower of London and 2020 was feeling pretty good with just a mild threat of the impending doom ahead of us – a few elbow knocking and jokes!! Let’s not spend time re living the […]
Read more >By Eoin Whyte – Sales Director, Savvy It was interesting to hear updated retail market forecasts from KPMG and Global Data last week on our first GCVA Connect member’s online meeting. The impact of Covid19 is scarcely comprehensible and going by the forecasts we heard from Don and Joe last week, the operating principle now […]
Read more >By Kim Anderson – Managing Director, Jigsaw Business Solutions This year, celebrating my 6th Jigsaw birthday on the 17th March was a somewhat different occasion – from home with my housemate and cat, and a glass of bubbles of course. We’ve celebrated several “Jigsaw” birthdays since, with one 1st birthday, three 2nd birthdays and our […]
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