The pandemic could tick up gift card purchasing, though it remains to be seen how that will impact spending. Amid widespread store and restaurant closures in the spring, businesses urged customers to purchase gift cards as a short-term solution to the cash crunch, and payments providers responded by boosting gift card issuance.

Impersonal or practical, gift cards are integral to the holiday season. Purchases of gift cards also keep rising every year. In 2017, US internet users purchased an average of 6.5 gift cards and 6.1 digital cards, up from 5.9 and 4.0 in 2016, according to First Data.

Spending on Father’s Day gifts is expected to reach a record high $16.0 billion, according to a May 2019 report by the National Retail Federation (NRF). But that doesn’t mean fathers should expect to receive anything too glamorous—greeting cards are still the most popular type of gift that consumers plan to purchase.

Buy now, pay later solutions are quickly gaining adoption as consumers look for new financing options and merchants aim to drive sales. But the industry is still unsettled as a number of firms are battling to lead the space, while card networks and issuers are looking to get involved too.