Gift Card Marketplace Launches Local-First Digital Reward Platform

New automated platform enables companies to send digital gift cards to recipients’ favorite local restaurants, spas and boutiques.

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A new gift card service called Gift Card Marketplace hopes to redefine the gift card industry by making local businesses instantly accessible for incentive and loyalty gift card programs.

Categories include restaurants, spas and salons, home services, auto repair, and more. When consumers visit the company's site, it serves up local options based on the IP address of the user.

Co-founded by Brett Glass (formerly of Gift Card Impressions), the platform uses dynamic curation technology and live integrations with Yelp and Google to surface millions of local merchants. In so doing, the company bypassed the challenging task of signing up local merchants. Cards run on Mastercard rails and can be delivered digitally via text or wallet—frictionless for the sender, recipient, and merchant.

“What makes this special is the emotional connection,” explains Cindy Willis, Product Manager at Maritz, the St. Louis engagement firm. “Participants can choose the spa they’ve gone to for 10 years or the restaurant where they celebrate birthdays. That’s something traditional catalogs can’t replicate.”

“We call it the Holy Grail of local rewards,” adds John Cullen,  Senior Vice President of  SVS,  which helps brands develop and distribute gift cards for business and consumers. “It enables scalable distribution of local gift cards without the impossible task of signing up every neighborhood merchant.”

Unlike traditional gift card programs, merchants are not required to enroll individually. “We built a dynamic curation engine so we don’t have to walk up and down Main Street signing retailers,” explains Glass.  “Consumers told us they wanted their favorite local spots—not the same national brands everywhere.”

Maritz began rolling the solution out to clients in late 2025, says Willis, reporting strong early interest from corporate buyers seeking more personalized, experience-driven rewards.

Industry leaders see Gift Card Marketplace as a potential new category within the gift card ecosystem—one that blends local commerce, digital delivery and incentive and promotional scalability.

For More Information
Junior Huen, SVS
jhuen@storedvalue.com

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