Gift cards help retailers earn revenue before a customer even walks in. In Singapore, the gift card and incentive card market is projected to grow from USD 49.24 billion in 2026 to USD 70.52 billion by 2031, at a 7.45% CAGR (Mordor Intelligence). For grocery stores and retail businesses, a gift card system works best when it’s connected to a membership management system that records every redemption, links it to a member account, and triggers the right follow-up.
Key Takeaways
- Gift cards for retailers generate advance revenue before a single item is sold, and the stored balance commits shoppers to returning.
- Pairing gift cards with loyalty points and vouchers covers the full customer journey — acquisition, habit-building, and re-engagement.
- Every gift card linked to a customer profile turns a transaction into actionable member insights you can use for EDMs and push notifications.
- Grocery repeat purchases grow when O2O redemption connects digital card activation to trackable in-store visits.
Why Does Customer Retention Matter Beyond One-Time Sales?
Most retailers focus on attracting new shoppers, but the bigger revenue opportunity is often getting them to return. Loyalty tools connected to POS can increase repeat visits by up to 20%, according to Novus Loyalty. Gift cards support the same goal: they bring in new shoppers through gifting, and the stored balance gives them a reason to come back.
How Gift Cards Create Advance Revenue and Bring Shoppers Back
When a customer buys a gift card, retailers collect payment before a single item leaves the shelf. Cash flow arrives ahead of the sale, and the cardholder is committed to returning.
Shoppers also tend to spend beyond the card value, meaning the card drives the visit while they fill the rest of their grocery basket with household essentials.
A bonus value campaign compounds this further. A “top up SGD 100, receive SGD 110” next-visit offer locks in future weekly grocery spending at your store. During Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, or year-end, festive gifting through a gift card brings in shoppers who may never have visited before.
How Customer Data Helps Retailers Promote Gift Cards More Effectively
A gift card linked to a customer profile becomes more than a payment method. Every redemption tells you what the shopper buys, when they visit, and how much they spend. Those member insights feed directly into your next campaign.
EDM marketing turns purchase history into action. Send a follow-up EDM when a member’s remaining balance drops. Use push notifications to promote a top-up offer before a festive period. Apply segmentation to reach high-frequency buyers with member-only grocery deals before they start shopping elsewhere.
- Common mistake: Treating your gift card system and membership management system as separate tools. Every card used without a linked member record is a missed follow-up.
NTUC FairPrice’s Link Rewards programme shows this at scale, connecting spending patterns, Linkpoints, and targeted offers across more than 1,000 partner outlets for 2.4 million members. KlikNGo CRM and marketing automation bring that capability to retailers in one platform.
Gift Cards vs Vouchers vs Loyalty Points: Which One Actually Brings Customers Back?
None of these works best alone. Gift cards generate upfront revenue and bring customers in. Loyalty points build repeat purchase habits. Voucher management handles short-term promotion.
Watsons Singapore shows how the three can work together. Customers top up a stored value card in-store, earn loyalty points toward Elite membership, and receive birthday vouchers and e-coupons that encourage another visit. According to AS Watson’s official announcement, Watsons reached 100 million loyalty members across Asia, later growing to 180 million. The lesson is simple: gift cards, vouchers, and loyalty points each solve a different part of customer retention.
Grocery Store Use Cases: FMCG Products, Weekly Essentials, and Repeat Visits
Customer retention starts with visit frequency. Grocery shoppers in Singapore already visit weekly. The challenge is keeping them loyal to your store specifically.
Gift cards and stored-value rewards support this behaviour. F&B made up 28.4% of Singapore’s total gift card market in 2025 (Mordor Intelligence), while offline channels hold a 58.7% share, showing that in-store redemption remains important.
With O2O redemption (buying a card online and using it in-store), customers can buy or receive a card online and use it in-store, helping retailers turn digital activity into trackable store visits and grocery repeat purchases.
How KliKNGo Supports Gift Card and Member Journeys
Most mid-market retailers know gift cards work. The harder part is connecting the gift card management system to your member database, marketing automation, and member reporting dashboard without managing three separate systems.
KliKNGo’s CRM System links every gift card transaction/redemption to a member profile automatically. That means each transaction/redemption becomes a data point: trigger an EDM when a balance runs low, send a push notification for a bonus reload offer, or identify which campaigns actually drove return visits rather than just card sales.
Members access everything in one place through a membership app, a membership website, or a mini-program. A digital stamp card can be layered on top to increase visit frequency between redemptions & the reporting dashboard gives you visibility across the full journey.
See how the membersite works in practice: webapp demo & standard website demo
Summary: Turning Gift Cards into Repeat Revenue
Gift cards work because they commit customers to returning before they have spent a cent. Connect them to customer data, loyalty points, and targeted EDMs and that commitment becomes a measurable retention engine.
Four steps to get started:
- Set up your gift card system with a bonus value campaign ahead of your next festive period.
- Link gift card purchases to loyalty points so members earn on the card, not just the spend.
- Use transaction/redemption data to build member profiles segmented by spending patterns, weekly grocery spending, and card behaviour.
- Activate push notifications and EDMs for members with low remaining balances or upcoming expiry dates.
FAQs About Gift Card Systems for Retailers
What is a gift card system? A gift card system is a platform that lets retailers issue, sell, and track prepaid stored-value cards, digital or physical, linked to member accounts. When connected to a membership management system, each redemption captures customer data and feeds into loyalty programmes and follow-up campaigns.
Do gift cards work better than loyalty points for customer retention? They serve different purposes. Gift cards generate advance revenue and acquire new customers through gifting. Loyalty points build repeat visit habits over time. The strongest results come from using both together.
What is EDM marketing and how does it relate to gift cards? EDM marketing refers to targeted email campaigns sent to your member list. When your gift card system is connected to member data, you can send EDMs based on real redemption behaviour, reminding a member their balance is running low, or promoting a festive top-up offer to past buyers.
Can small retailers in Singapore use a gift card system? Yes. KlikNGo lets retailers start small with gift cards and loyalty points, then scale into automated campaigns as their member base grows.
