Financial technology company Miconex says the success of its Town and City gift cards during 2020 is a sign that consumers are turning to local, multi-venue gift card programmes to support local businesses. 

The localised gift cards are exemplified by the ‘Lakes Gift Card’, developed for the towns and villages of Ballinrobe, Cong, Kilmaine and Clonbur in Co Mayo, the balance of which must be spent in signed-up retailers in those towns. 

The principle applies to all Miconex programmes, such as the other new launch last November, for Drogheda, The British-company says it now has 59 such programmes in operation with a new scheme planned for Carndonagh shortly.

In Ballinrobe, the gift card scheme was a joint initiative between Ballinrobe Community Development Council and Ballinrobe Enterprise Organisation.

CDC chair Pat Donnellan said: “Demand for gift cards in the Christmas week was crazy. We sold the cards at Murphy’s Newsagents and were selling 100 cards a day. Martin Murphy who came up with the idea of a gift card had people coming into the shop constantly for cards. 

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“The Lakes Gift Card was the number 1 Christmas gift in the town. Our campaign now is focused on redemption, and encouraging people to use their card. With merchant promotions on redemptions, we can make the Lakes Gift Card better than cash for consumers.”

Miconex says that more than €2m was spent through its cards in 2020, an increase of 350%.

Chief executive Colin Munro added: “The shop local sentiment has been building globally for some years now. The pandemic has accelerated the shop local trend and increased the demand but is not the sole cause of it. 

“What our places in Ireland have done is convert the demand for local shopping into economy boosting revenue, in a programme that works just as well in a small town as in a large city.

“What we can see from the 2020 data is that multi-venue gift cards are popular across the generations. As we would expect, Boomers and Generation X shoppers spend most when they buy gift cards, due to their greater disposable income, but Millennials and Generation Z are vital to the long term success of gift card programmes. Once that loyalty is gained, purchase values can increase alongside disposable income.”

The company developed Britain’s first city-wide gift card programme in Perth in 2015. It facilitates local business and development organisations to develop local card schemes.

The Irish gift cards can be purchased from the company’s Irish website here.

Photo (l-r): Richard Burke, Martin Murphy, Davy Walsh and Pat Donnellan