Gift cards are a big benefit for customers.
Not only do they encourage customer spending, but research have determined that consumers love giving and receiving the gift of gift cards!
Offering gift cards are beneficial, but there are also a number of things to take into consideration to ensure you are getting the most out of selling these:
- Make your gift cards ‘gift-ready’
Make gift cards more presentable by putting them in a cardholder, sleeve, box or pouch. Consider whether your gift card can literally be taken from the store directly to a birthday party.
One great example of this, is Sephora. When purchasing a Sephora gift card, it gets placed inside a delicate compact mirror, then a black gift bag and then finally wrapped up in red tissue paper – gift ready!
Not only does this make the gift card more presentable, but it results in less hassle for your customer as gift wrapping has been taken care of as well.
- Offer gift cards well before Christmas and popular festive periods.
This will provide time for you to educate your team on the technical details and policies of your gift card program. This will also provide the time to test the scheme and iron out any problems prior to the busy shopping season starting.
Here are few things to keep in mind:
Technology:Ensure you gift card solution works well with your inventory, POS and reporting in order to be processed and tracked correctly.
Design:Determining at an early stage which gift card designs performs well, can help you to order in a timely manner prior to running out.
Merchandise:Ensure to test different merchandise technique to ensure your gift cards are in sight and easily accessible.
Marketing:Try different marketing methods to determine where and how your marketing budget should be spent.
Carry a variety of gift card designs
Not investing enough time and money in card designs can impact the performance of gift card programs. Gift card designs can make or break a sale, so ensure you have a variety of designs available for multiple occasions (birthday, engagement, wedding, new home, etc).
Ensure you track from an early stage what card designs are selling well in order to replicate success and to be able to order in a timely manner, so you never run out. Don’t be afraid to bring in new designs on a yearly basis, or, to replace outdated ones. Tracking should be done on a monthly or quarterly basis to ensure that the gift card program stays interesting, appealing and relevant.
When implemented correctly, gift cards can be a goldmine!