How did the business start?

Having successfully seen Vouchercloud take the printable voucher to mobile and online, we wanted to repeat this success of taking something from the physical world into the digital world and improving the proposition for businesses and consumers and decided that the multi billion UK gift card market was a great place to focus on -­ Giftcloud launched the first “digital” gift card mall in the UK in 2014, allowing customer to purchase gift cards in a digital format from all major brands in real time and since then we have continued to grow and as the industry moves to B2B, so has our focus.

What attracted you to the gift card industry and what opportunities did you spot?

Apart from the size of it, we felt that there were key opportunities to improve the B2B and B2C propositions by going digital. Whether it was allowing consumers to personalise and schedule the sending of a gift or allowing brands to lower the fulfilment costs in using rewards for acquisition / retention etc. we strongly believed that the gift card industry was ripe for evolution and we were keen to play a key part in this.

Following the successful launch of Giftcloud, for consumers, it became apparent that we had the technical talent to build digital solutions for the B2B space, Giftcloud for business was launched, providing digital solutions, to enhance marketing campaigns for our business partners, complimented with a dashboard that provides performance transparency on all campaigns.

Did you have a light bulb moment?

A few years ago, I qualified for a “reward” after buying a new dishwasher, this reward came weeks after the purchase and I had limited choice and I actually ended up losing the plastic gift card ! I decided Giftcloud could provide the tech and the choice to enhance this process as well as a digital journey to make sure that the consumer would never lose the reward – real-­time rewards with a vast choice was where we knew the big growth opportunity was.

How has the business developed?

We have kept true to our basic principles providing digital solutions and choice, we have continued to grow our retailers and brands in our platform – obviously we started with a B2C proposition and whilst we are now evolving this by offering whitelabel solutions to partners, utilising the core tech capabilities that we have, we are now focused on International and B2B – our third party portal is now the focus of the B2B proposition moving forward and we will see this significantly evolve over the next 12 months, fixing more and more problem statements that our clients discuss with us.

What are the biggest opportunities / challenges in your business and the sector?

The Giftcloud team provide first class account management support, we follow the strict guidelines and sign off process enforced by retailers, this can sometimes be a challenge when working on deadlines with our business partners opportunities.

How do you attract and retain a talented team?

I am proud of the team that has evolved at Giftcloud, they are all passionate about Giftcloud, most of the team have been on the journey from the beginning and a handful even started with me on the Vouchercloud journey. I like to be transparent and available, and encourage the team to think outside the box, bringing ideas and new tech to life and taking ownership for various parts of the business growing.