Written by Esteban Martinez from Oh! Gift Card
The ravages of COVID-19 all around the world are there for all to see. Thousands of industries are still trying to get back to normal after two years of unprecedented health and economic crisis.
COVID-19 landed in South America and particularly Argentina, our headquarters, in March 2020. At that time, of course, uncertainty invaded the business. Nevertheless, as time went by, we realised that the pandemic not only didn’t damage the company but also boosted its growth.
By the year 2015, oh! Gift Card started working on a plan for a regional expansion. Once we consolidated the business in Argentina, we started operating in bordering countries such as Uruguay and Chile, and later Perú and Colombia. In 2021 oh! Gift Card arrived in Mexico, and by the year 2023, we hope to reach Brazil.
In this sense, efforts destined for regionalisation and the worldwide tendency to digitalization prepared the ground. The pandemic accelerated and intensified digital consumption habits. These factors enabled our sustained growth year by year, potentiated between 2020 and 2021. Results are encouraging:
- Speaking about segment B2B, gift card emission has grown by a 23% since 2019
- On the other hand, in segment B2C, the growth reached 163% by the same time.
- The company’s annual turnover increased by 40% during 2020, and the expectation is to overcome this number by 2021.
- When it comes to the digitalization of the products we offer, in 2019, we had a share of
- 24% digital gift cards and 76% of physical gift cards. In 2020 this percentage inverted to
- 73% of digital cards and 27% physical. The result is lower operative and logistical costs.
Other facts we must keep an eye on: during 2020 and 2021, the digitalization of the global population has shown a significant increase. Internet usage has grown by 5.3%, and activity in social media by 13.5% in Latin America. Web traffic in different e-commerces increased by 17% with conversion rates over 20%.
To sum up, all these numbers tell us that the act of giving is evolving in a very accelerated way. oh! Gift Card is not going to stay behind when it comes to innovation. We have big projects to boost the B2C segment and consolidate the B2B segment by 2022 in the whole region. We are happy to count on The Gift Club and can’t wait to find out all the possibilities this community has to offer.
