Valentine’s Day Gift Card Sales Show Guests’ Love for Digital (and Procrastinating)

As noted in the recently-released Gift Card Report: 2023 from Paytronix, restaurant gift card sales have been going increasingly digital since 2020. But the effect of this shift shows up brightly when we looked closely at Valentine’s Day card sales.

Paytronix data shows that digital gift card sales on Valentine’s Day hit their highest number on record, increasing nearly 7% over last year and more than doubling since 2019. Also of interest, the highest sales of digital gift cards shifted from the day before Valentine’s Day to Valentine’s Day itself, indicating that guests are taking advantage of the flexibility of digital gift cards and delaying their purchases until the last minute.

This has the potential to change how brands market cards to their guests.

Moreover, 2023 saw the highest revenue of any year from 2019-2023 for the period from February 1 through 14, indicating that restaurant gift card spending may finally surpass pre-pandemic revenue – a welcome relief for a restaurant industry battered by the pandemic, inflation, and staffing shortages.

And of course, to all the restaurants out there: Happy Valentine’s Day from your friends at Paytronix. We have gift cards for all of you.