With the holidays coming up, a local startup has recently launched to help out those last-minute shoppers and business looking for a way to reward their team for the though year.
Irving-based CardNow, a B2B and B2C on-demand gift card e-commerce and subscription company, had its soft launch over the summer. Now, with the ability to ship across the country, CardNow is gearing up for the biggest gift-giving season of the year.
“Going back to the store is sort of a constant. But with our store, you’re always going to have an inventory of cards, so whatever occasions pop up you can load the exact amount you need on the exact cards you need,” Matthew Frye, co-founder and CEO at CardNow, told NTX Inno.
The concept, that the company calls “gifting made easy,” is simple: For about $13, users order a starter box from CardNow that comes with 25 gift unloaded gift cards from five brands of their choosing, along with 25 gift card holds. Through the CardNow app, users can then activate and load the card with an amount of their choosing. They can also free refills of cards when they are running low.
In addition to the gift card service, CardNow users can also earn reward from purchases and send other digital gifts.
The idea came from a few experiences in Frye's past. Before becoming active in the gift card industry through work at places like Ingo Money and Blackhawk Network, he remembers his grandmother having a go-to “gift closet,” that she could pull supplies from if an occasion (and he says any occasion) came up.
Then, years later, he was preparing to take his son to a birthday party, when his son informed him he had yet to get a gift. Like many, his wife went to her drawer of half-used gift cards, looking for something suitable. She eventually did, but it left Frye looking for a way to help others avoid the same situation.
“I got exposed to this other primary delivery model that exists for a lot of household owners, managers and small business owners and operators, that they just walk into a CVS and buy five or ten cards at the same time… that stuff is happening constantly, and there’s just a better way to solve that, we felt,” Frye said.
Though the current season will likely mean new individual customers, CardNow is also looking at the B2C market as one of its core clients. Frye sees the product as an ideal fit for companies that are planning incentives and awards to their teams, as wells as businesses like real estate, when businesses typically send small gifts to their clients. He also sees it as a cost saving measure, since cards don’t need to be pre-loaded with cash before purchasing.
“There are many more predictable occasions for reward and incentives than there are for gifts, so gifts obviously this year is a big time, then it’s going to be sporadic based on family structure… but in a work environment you can expect rewards and incentives for either customers or staff will happen at a little more predictable model,” Frye said. “It’s the convenience that it offers and the efficiency it offers that I think it applies in both scenarios but the engagement I’m going to get from a business buyer is going to be higher.”
In addition to the holiday buying boom, Frye said the pandemic could potentially be a boost for CardNow. On one hand, e-commerce sales have grown during the crisis. On the other, more people are using curbside pick-up at grocery stores, where many purchase gift cards. However, Frye said gift cards are one of the few items that can only be bought in the store.
“I’m sort of up ahead of the holidays, so I want to start getting boxes in people’s hands before the holidays… because this is to enable you to manage your own last minute things better,” Frye said. “This week, next week, we’re really focused on getting as many orders fulfilled and out the door.”
Frye said the company has seen a number of customers and has received positive reviews. And he said the five-person CardNow team is now ready to start taking orders from customers across the U.S.
As it looks to grow, CardNow plans to add other brands to its offering, including Visa and Mastercard gift cards and digital payment options like Apple Pay. CardNow is also looking at customized corporate branding options, to deepen its ties in the B2B market.
“It’s all about rewarding and saying thank you and incentivizing behavior activity that employers or businesses, or sometimes just families, want to see. These are great ways to do that with these gift cards,” Frye said. “My long-term vision is this helps drive more rewards and more engagement which are what employees and customers want.”
