PORTLAND — CashStar, a Portland-based electronic gift card company, is hosting a “e-gifting” conference that kicks off tonight and is expected to draw representatives from leading retail companies nationwide.
Called the CashStar Retailer Roundtable, the conference will bring national retailers together with academics and experts in electronic gifting to discuss the future of the digital gifting industry.
The event starts with a dinner tonight, runs all day tomorrow and is being held at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute on Commercial Street.
Speakers, among them a Harvard Business School professor, will discuss how mobile technologies and websites like Groupon.com impact the industry. They will also talk about new consumer research and ways companies can market electronic gift cards, said a media release.
CashStar executives will lead education sessions about holiday readiness, gift card fraud and other gift card issues.
Attendees at the event are expected to include representatives from retailers including Best Buy, The Cheesecake Factory, CVS/pharmacy, The Home Depot, Lands’ End, Staples, Williams-Sonoma and others.
CashStar has some 50 staffers and sells online digital gift card platforms to major retailers.
Electronic gift card sales are increasing 300 to 400 percent yearly, cutting into sales of plastic cards, said CashStar CEO David Douglas Stone.
Annual electronic gift card sales are roughly $1 billion to $1.5 billion, a fraction of the $91 billion gift card industry, which is still dominated by plastic cards, said Stone.
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