Gift Cards: A Booming Niche in the Marketplace

Jacobs comments that automation in the gift card industry still has room for improvement. “There’s a fairly high level of handling of this material,” he says. “We are constantly doing one task, then the sheets will wait before going to the next station. The operation is labor intensive.”

Jacobs says vendors are responding. The new generation of Datacard systems combine card personalization and affixing to the carrier all in line, on one machine. This eliminates a step, reduces floor space and labor requirements.