New partnership rounds up ‘shop local’ gifts for the end of term
The Editor
People can now group collect, fee-free, for the Bradford City Centre Gift Card. Business leaders say they hope the move will divert teacher gift spending into the local economy.
A new partnership between Bradford BID, Miconex, and GiftRound will simplify group collecting for the Bradford City Centre Gift Card in time for the end of the school year.
From now, people will be able to set up a group collection for the Bradford City Centre Gift Card www.bradfordgiftcard.com and redeem as a digital gift card, fee-free.
Once the GiftRound collection closes, the digital Bradford City Centre Gift Card can be sent directly to the organiser with a printable gift card, or directly to the recipient with a link to messages from the contributors. Collections can also be split across multiple gifts/recipients.
Delivered by Bradford BID, the Bradford Gift Card is a local gift card that can be spent with over 120 local businesses including big brands like Primark, J D Sports and Nandos, and local independent businesses like Pizza Pieces, The Alhambra and Blossoms.
The ability to group collect for a Bradford Gift Card arrives just in time for the end of term teacher gifting season. With an estimated 4.5m children in state funded primary schools in the UK and parents spending an average of £9.06 on teacher gifts, over £4m is spent on teacher gifts at the end of term, and again at Christmas, if just 10% of families buy a gift for a teacher.
The partnership between Miconex and GiftRound will enable group collecting for over 90+ Town & City Gift Card programmes in the UK. Miconex announced over £24m in local gift card sales across its network in 2025, a 60% increase on 2024 as shoppers make the move to local gift cards to show support for local businesses.
Group collecting platform GiftRound reports that the average contribution to a teacher gift on their platform is £10, with an average overall teacher collection value of £145. The tech firm was founded in 2018, giving people an easy, fee-free way to collect money for various occasions including leaving gifts, new babies, weddings and teacher gifts.
Over 175,000 collections have been created to date through GiftRound with over £9 million in gift cards/vouchers ordered through the platform.
Nikki Chadburn, business communications manager at Bradford BID said: “The Bradford City Centre Gift Card is popular for gifts, rewards and incentives, giving the recipient money to spend with over 120 amazing local businesses right here in Bradford city centre.The ability to group collect, gather messages in one place, and send our local gift card easily is a positive development and will be useful for end of term gifts but also wedding gifts, leaving gifts, new baby gifts and more. With over £4m being spent on teacher gifts at the end of term, the more spend we can lock into our economy through the Bradford City Centre Gift Card, the more businesses we can keep open and the more vibrant our city will be.”
Craig Forsythe, CEO & founder at GiftRound, said: “Going live with Town & City Gift Cards, including the Bradford City Centre Gift Card, across 90+ UK towns and cities is exciting. We’re making it easy to group collect for all kinds of occasions and redeem as a local gift card where the beneficiaries are the local businesses who power our economy. Gifts for teachers is one of our most popular collections and it makes huge sense.
Instead of teachers receiving multiple mugs or gift sets, parents can each put a small amount into a collection, and the teacher receives the collection as a gift card to buy something they’d really like.”
David O’Neil, chief customer and growth officer at Miconex, said: “The Bradford Gift Card is the ultimate ‘shop local’ gift card, blending unbeatable local choice and unrivalled support for local. It’s fantastic to see this new technology go live in time for the end of term – helping people easily collect money as a group for a teacher’s gift – and gift a teacher the best of local in one gift card.”
