As a smart business owner in today’s technology driven environment, its important to give customers flexibility when purchasing from you. Credit cards are an easy way to allow people to buy whenever they choose. But if you’re ready to take it to the next level, you may wish to include gift cards as well.
In today’s electronic age, gift cards have become quite the popular gift. Gift cards allow the recipient to choose the items they want from a store, rather than being stuck with something they do not like and must return. Gift cards are easy to use, easy to buy and convenient for both the giver and the receiver.
As a business owner, having gift cards available for purchase is practically a must – you want your customers to encourage their friends and family to shop at your store and gift cards make it easy. If you have decided to utilize gift cards, here are a few things you need to know.
The gift card process is easy – your customer buys the gift card using cash or another means of purchase. The card is activated and loaded by the cashier. The customer can give the card to anyone (or use it themselves) for purchases. Some gift cards can be reloaded as many times as the customer needs. The customer can see the remaining balance after every purchase or call a number on the back of the card for automated information.
Your merchant reports will include a variety of information, including activations, deactivations and purchases. You can use the internet to access various reports, including total and individual transactions. Fraud controls are easy to use and built into the gift card programs.
The benefits of gift cards include:
- customers with gift cards often return to your store and purchase more than the amount of the gift card, thereby increasing your sales;
- about 20 percent of customers will not spend the entire amount of their gift card – but the remaining portion still adds to your profits;
- gift cards are more secure than paper gift certificates;
- gift cards are convenient and serve as constant advertising – every time a customer opens his/her wallet, the card bearing your store’s name will be visible.