CVS & INCOMM PAYMENTS

A strategy to grow the CVS gift card category

CLIENT | CVS & INCOMM PAYMENTS

CVS is one of America’s leading retailers of gift cards, with almost 40% of people buying a gift card at CVS every year. For established leaders in a category like CVS, it can be difficult to grow in a meaningful way. Over the past 18 months, we have been supporting CVS and their gift card provider InComm Payments to design and execute a gift card growth strategy that will engage consumers and deliver results.

THE CHALLENGE

OUR APPROACH

We conducted a series of stakeholder interviews, consumer and competitor research to understand where there were opportunities for CVS to grow their gift card business and differentiate from the market. Two opportunities that were identified were gift card assortment and promotions.

We have been capturing ongoing market and consumer insights to effectively identify trends that indicate where the gift card category is going, to keep CVS one step ahead.

A key area for CVS was to reduce gift card fraud, which has become an area of concern across the entire gift card industry. To meet this objective we have been facilitating monthly cross functional meetings with key CVS and InComm Payments stakeholders, that focus on identifying fraud issues at store level, developing the right mitigation initiatives and communicating this to all 7000 CVS stores.

In addition to focusing on a strategy in the short term, we have developed a range of longer term initiatives that will support CVS to grow the category over the next 5-10 years.

THE OUTCOME

Over the past 18 months, CVS has seen double digit growth in gift card sales, which translates into significant revenue in a multi-billion dollar category. They have also seen significant improvements in gift card fraud metrics and customer satisfaction.