Online Gifting is More About B2B Than B2C. Here's How 70 per cent of gift cards are purchased by corporate for giving it to their employees, channel partners etc.

Whenever we receive a gift card or a gift voucher, as a gift or reward it always leaves us in excited. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, gift card is a prepaid stored-value money card which is usually issued by a retailer or bank to be used as an alternative to cash for purchases within a particular store or related businesses.

In today's time when internet and smartphone penetration is increasing, online gifting is witnessing a rapid growth. According to the figures, gifting industry in India is around $50 billion and out of this about $20 billion is personal gifting.

During SURGE Tech Conference we interacted with Pratap T P, Co-founder of Qwikcilver Solutions, a pioneers in pre-paid, gift-card paradigm in India and Asia, about the online gifting market in India, he stated that the demand for gift card is more in B2B space as compared to B2C. This is how he explained.

"We are technology behind the gift cards in India. 90 per cent of gift cards which are operating in India are operating on Qwikcilver network. But if you talk about the industry than over the last three years we have seen a dipping point as categories are growing by 3x YoY. More important, 70 per cent of gift cards are purchased by corporate for giving it to their employees, channel partners etc. So rapid adoption takes place at B2B level and if we talk about B2C, it is growing but it is still early days for us," Said TP.

As Indians still rely on traditional methods of personal gifting, corporate are using gift card to award their employees or to gift their business partners.

Though urbanites have started using online gifting as their first option, still half of the community rely on same old tradition which indicates that online gifting is still more B2B than B2C.

(With inputs from Sneha Banerjee)