Coinstar to roll out gift card mall program

BELLEVUE, Wash.-Coinstar E-Payment Services will roll out its gift card mall program to feature leading dining, clothing, entertainment, book, home and service cards for shopper convenience.

The gift card mall program gives grocery, drug and other retailers a turnkey, innovative gift card program to drive incremental traffic, sales and profits into the store.

While consumer demand for gift cards is rising sharply from $79 billion in 2004 to a projected $132 billion by 2008, existing gift card mall solutions have limitations and can be costly to maintain.

"Coinstar's gift card mall is a step up from what exists for retailers today," said Steve Verleye, general manager of electronic payment solutions.

"After talking to retailers and examining current gift card mall solutions, we believe we've developed a program that addresses retailer challenges while maximizing their sales and profit opportunity. Our program is unique in that we allow retailers to maximize gift card mall revenues with a solution and card portfolio that best fits their needs. In addition, our complete service can reduce labor costs through Coinstar's category management approach."

Coinstar's gift card mall program represents the company's latest move in developing a comprehensive offering that helps retailers increase consumer traffic and drive profit at the front of the store. The program's category management process includes inventory control, management of card sourcing, display design and merchandising and technology integration for point-of-sale. Coinstar's gift card portfolio will include regional and national retail branded gift cards as well as gift cards from online retailers. Coinstar also plans to offer the unique ability to integrate its self-service kiosk with point-of-sale solutions so that in the future gift cards can also be reloaded at the Coinstar kiosk.

"Coinstar prides itself in being a one-stop supplier for retailers' front-of-store needs, which today consists of self-service coin counting, e-payment services and entertainment services," added Verleye. "The gift card mall is a natural extension to our e-payment or pay-as-you-go product line."