Do you believe in the power of a gift? Poses the home page of Gift & Go, a B2B on demand gifting technology platform powered by Amazon and whose client roster boasts names such as Hard Rock International and Light & Wonder.
With this in mind CasinoBeats spoke to Joe Hall, the group’s CEO, to discover more about the concept, aiding acquisition and retention, the key differences between online and offline gifting, and plans through the remainder of the year and beyond.
CasinoBeats: For the benefits of our readers, could you explain a little bit about the concept of Gift & Go?
Joe Hall: Gift & Go is the new gifting technology platform that plugs into the power of Amazon Prime to help casinos quickly, cost effectively and easily attract new players and keep existing ones.
With no stock, no storage and no shipping to worry about, alongside instant access to millions of products and a global distribution network, player reward managers can create fully customisable incentive and loyalty campaigns in minutes.
Gift & Go gives casinos and players the freedom to choose the perfect gift, each time, every time.
CB: Acquisition and retention are two key areas that are consistently discussed and debated across the gaming ecosystem, how does Gift & Go help in this regard?
JH: When it comes to attracting new players, the key is standing out. Because competition is so fierce among casinos, to make an impact you need to have an offer that really grabs players’ attention.
“Gamification is an increasingly important part of any player reward and incentive experience”
Gift & Go gives casinos a way to stand out. Instead of the same old rewards players could get anywhere else, Gift & Go ditches those traditional incentives. By integrating seamlessly with Amazon Business, it harnesses the power of Amazon Prime to let casinos select from millions of different reward options.
Most importantly, it gives players the freedom to choose for themselves and not from two or three items or a selection of 15 different products but real, infinite choice.
It gives them the option of instantly customising rewards – by size, type or colour for example – with immediate delivery using Amazon’s global distribution network.
That huge choice keeps players playing, too. Gift & Go boosts retention rates because players see the huge range of rewards on offer and want to make multiple selections. They know if they keep playing and keep earning loyalty points, they can return for an ever-changing selection of rewards.
Gift & Go’s advanced software also helps with both acquisition and retention because it streamlines operations and improves efficiencies by:
- Eliminating stock holding and warehousing for big costs savings
- Simplifying the redemption process and loyalty store experiences with no need for developers
- Reducing the time and effort needed to ship gifts with Amazon handling all fulfilment and customer service
CB: To continue the above, gamification is one strategy where innovations are seemingly endless with regards to acquisition and, crucially, retention. Do you believe Gift & Go can provide a much welcome help, or even alternative, to such techniques?
JH: Absolutely, gamification is an increasingly important part of any player reward and incentive experience, and this is something we’re very much focused on at Gift & Go.
Our platform gives casinos a range of options for every player acquisition and retention campaign they run, from sweepstakes and giveaways to fully integrated loyalty programs with multiple tier levels.
“Online and offline casino markets are two distinctly different worlds”
We have a number of win/lose gamification themes – including spin to win, raffles and scratch cards. They’re all highly effective ways for casinos to provide a top quality, highly personalised reward experience to their players, while still limiting the number of winners.
They give casinos the chance to open up their acquisition and retention campaigns to a much larger demographic, increasing the number of players they win and keep. We also work directly with some casino providers using our custom API integrations to create highly bespoke gamification options that further drive player engagement and build loyal fan bases.
CB: Are there any key differences to bear in mind with regards to online versus offline casino gifting? And what would you highlight as the key benefits of both?
JH: Online and offline casino markets are two distinctly different worlds. They each have different customer segments representing different forms of value.
Online gifting is simple: everyone is used to selecting a gift online and entering their delivery information. There’s a certain level of expectation when it comes to the user experience, and the key here is delivering on that.
Gift & Go focuses on a simple, streamlined redemption process and mirrors the Amazon ecommerce shopping experience so both players and managers intuitively know how to find and select the rewards they want.
In offline markets, we integrate our technology directly into physical POS, terminals, kiosks and slot machines on the casino floor. This increases key KPIs such as:
- Walk in rates
- Time on machine
- Coin in
- Daily and net theo
By integrating the gifting redemption experience directly into physical casino machines, Gift & Go adds big benefits to offline operators. It also delivers a better experience to players, too. They never need to leave their machine to select their rewards, and they’ll find the perfect gift waiting at home when they return, delivered straight to their door.
“Instead of the same old rewards players could get anywhere else, Gift & Go ditches those traditional incentives”
CB: What advantages does your player boutique solution offer to organisations?
JH: We developed Player Boutique for the US casino market and launched with Scientific Games to help casinos make the transformation from traditional player gifting programs to a more efficient, more cost-effective operations model.
It upgrades player loyalty and the gaming experience by integrating directly into machines on the gaming floor and eliminating the need for redemption stores on-site.
There’s no storage or shipping to worry about, players don’t have to wait in line or haul gifts around the casino, and there’s never any disappointment that advertised gifts have sold out. Rewards are delivered directly to players in just two days with Amazon Prime fulfilment.
And because players can redeem directly on a gaming device or mobile app, it directly increases time spent on machine and coin-in. Some of the organisations we work with have already seen double digit percentage reductions in walk-out rates.
CB: What can we expect moving forward from Gift & Go?
JH: We’re just focused on continually improving our user interface to deliver the very best experience for our customers.
We were recently awarded Amazon’s sought after P1 Preferred Partner status – the only gifting technology provider on their platform – and last month we released a new, truly dynamic product selection experience that integrates seamlessly with core Amazon systems.
We’re also working with a number of clients to develop some highly bespoke gaming experiences with our custom API integrations.
