Reward Card Incentives Expected to Drive Holiday Sales

While the retail community braces for flat or slightly lower retail spending this holiday season, some retailers can expect to benefit from savvy shoppers taking full advantage of credit and debit card reward programs that offer the richest earning incentives, with shopping dollars going to merchants that provide high-value offers, according to Vesdia Corporation, the single largest provider of multi-channel merchant networks and shopping incentive services. A recent survey of 1,000 American consumers, conducted by Kelton Research on behalf of Vesdia, indicates that half of shoppers this holiday season plan to use a credit or debit card that offers additional shopping incentives such as bonus points, miles, discounts or cash back. Savvy consumers are increasingly aware of the special offers available to them and intend to patronize merchants that can help maximize their spending power.

Vesdia, a leading supplier of merchant-funded reward networks for credit and debit card reward programs, reports a sharp increase in consumer spending during the past nine months leading up to the holiday season for consumers using cards that offer additional rewards for shopping at participating in-store, catalog and online merchants. In a sample of more than 10 million consumers from January through September 2008, consumers enrolled in reward card programs with a merchant network increased spending by 37 percent compared to the same time period in 2007. Vesdia is predicting that this trend will continue through Black Friday and Cyber Monday, noting that consumers will strongly favor using a card that provides additional incentives for shopping with participating retailers.

“Consumers can earn double to as much as 10 times the standard reward program earnings rate by shopping at participating merchants,” explains Lars Holmquist, chief marketing officer of Vesdia. “These accelerated earnings are gained on top of the sale price or best offer that a consumer can find in-store or online.”

Merchants have long offered incentives to consumers for shopping online, but the strongest growth in spending and reward earning this year is occurring in the brick and mortar retail channel. While online merchandising is important and online shopping appeals to a large segment of the population, more consumers appear to be conducting research online and then transacting at brick and mortar store locations that offer both attractive prices and reward incentives.

Holmquist provides consumers the best advice on how to maximize holiday shopping budgets, “Before you kick-off your holiday spending, take a few minutes to learn about your credit card or debit card benefits, and use the one with the richest earning incentives. In this difficult economy retailers value customers’ business more than ever and card issuers are offering a broad range of benefits to incent cardholders to use their card versus others - this year the consumer is in the driver’s seat.”

About Vesdia

Vesdia Corporation is the single largest provider of partnership marketing and multi-channel merchant network services. Through its leading merchant-funded rewards programs and patent-protected technology, Vesdia offers a full array of loyalty solutions to financial institutions, affinity groups and merchants enabling customers to earn more meaningful rewards faster. For more information, visit www.vesdia.com.