As the holidays approach, small business owners are constantly looking for innovative ways to compete with big box stores and mass market retailers to gain your piece of the holiday shopping pie. One piece that small businesses have far too often left on the table has been the gift card market.
Once upon a time, the idea of gift cards for small businesses were simply too complex to handle the logistics of. Today, though, the gift card marketplace is filled with retailers of every shape and size looking to cash in on eager holiday shoppers and small businesses can have their piece of the pie – and eat it too!
This is especially the case if you’ve taken the opportunity to upgrade to the Smart POS (point of sale) way of doing business. People love giving gift cards. It’s a way to help loved ones discover new treasured favorite stores or to shop for the person in your life that already seems to have it all.
Whether shoppers are looking for holiday gift giving ideas with gift cards, birthday greetings, graduation, or wedding gifts, you can have them covered by doing little more than installing a simple app on your Clover Station POS system. The Gift Card Program App for Clover and Clover Mini allows you to offer tangible or digital gift cards to your customers, so they can share their love of your store with their friends, family members, and other loved ones.
Since this app is FREE, it’s a cinch to see how well gift cards are going to perform in your retail environment, and experience the many ways it can help your business thrive in the months ahead.
As the holiday season approaches, more and more people will begin to show interest in purchasing gift cards from favorite boutique shops, clothing stores, restaurants, and other small businesses. You don’t want to miss out on the potential boon this business could provide well into the new year by not offering gift cards to your customers. There are a few considerations to keep in mind, though, such as these.
How do Gift Cards Add Revenue to Your Business?
According to Nasdaq, 65 percent of gift card recipients spend 38 percent, on average, more than the face value of their gift cards. It’s a gift that keeps on giving for your business. You make one sale the day you sell your gift card and an additional sale, more often than not, when the card is redeemed. The additional benefit for the small business owner is that people often offer gift cards to retailers the other person may not have tried before. This provides your business with an opportunity to convert one-time visitors into lifetime customers. This means that by offering gift cards you’re opening the doors of your business up for a wealth of potential new revenue.
How Can You Track the Balance of Gift Cards?
Whether your business offers physical gift cards or eGift Cards you will find that your Smart POS device can help you track the balance your customers have available and remaining after the sale, effortlessly. No complex financial wrangling is required to keep your gift card sales and purchases on the record.
Physical vs. eGift Cards
The debate rages on, but some believe it’s like cake and icing. Why would you choose either/or, when it is so easy for your business to incorporate both? Whether it is a physical card or a digital code the information, balances, etc. is all stored in the ether of the World Wide Web. Customers can use either card to make purchases in store or online according to their preferences.
Business Benefits of Gift Cards
Finally, there are many ways your business benefits from offering gift cards. As far as small businesses go, offering gift cards in the first place makes you stand out among customers. This is especially true in a time when many small business owners simply elect not to offer gift cards. Whether they believe them to be too complex, time consuming, or ineffective, the truth is that they bring new business to small business doors and that’s something you should never ignore.
Additionally, customers like gift cards. Incentive Magazine reports that consumers spent roughly $46 billion on gift cards during 2016 and those numbers are expected to grow before all is said and done this year. Offering gift cards to your customers increases engagement, reduces fraud (by getting rid of paper certificates that were far too easily counterfeited), and boosts sales for small businesses.
The question isn’t whether your business can afford to offer gift cards to your customers. With the ease of POS systems like Clover Mini for creating, recording, and tracking gift card transactions, the real question is CAN you afford NOT to offer them?
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