Do gift card programs make sense?

[Laura Cioclea]

Hi again,

Currently I'm thinking of a gift card program for my Magento store . But I have a number of questions:

1. All in all, do gift cards make sense for a small business selling handbags,for example? I mean,these things aren't popular as wedding or baby-shower gifts. What's more gift cards remain popular mostly for the holiday season - and this is now too long.

2. I started to search for the gift card solution for my store and came to a standstill. I found a comparison chart of the most popular extensions (obviously promotional by one of the extension providers) and now I have another question: Do I really need all those features that offer the most-feature rich module? (like,tracking which GiftCard wassent to friends)

 

[Cameron Ziafat]

Have you considered surveying your past customers to see if it's something they'd make use of? You could use surveymonkey or google forms. Perhaps you could offer a small discount as an incentive to complete your survey (added bonus of perhaps bringing in some more sales!).

Otherwise you could spend a lot of time / money for something that your customers don't even want!

 

[Matt Thorpe]

Hi Laura,

In my experience it is hard to gain traction for gift cards when you are a small business. If you have an interesting product/s then people are more likely to purchase them rather than a gift card. I do also think that women prefer to put more thought into buying a gift rather than just handing over a gift card. Men tend to be different. I may be wrong though.

Gift cards generally work best for high street brands that have thousands of products where someone would shop on a regular basis.

What is the reason for you wanting to implement a gift card solution? Is it to drive more revenue?

If so, then I would look at other way to improve conversion such as free delivery, discount codes or even gift wrapping. The latter could be a great option for those gift buyers.

One other thing. Presentation is everything when buying a gift and people need to be confident that the product will arrive in packaged beautifully. Show them this!!! A site which I love in particular is called Shore Projects. Look at the way they show the watches in a gift box. (Please note that I am not affiliated to them in any way. I just like there watches and product proposition.)

I hope this helps.

Matt

 

[AntoineR]

Hello,

I guess the gift card can potentially increase the loyalty of your customers. It won't work if you sell 5 products. If you sell the handbags, I think you still can win from implementing this.
I would recommend to check the gift card from webtexsoftware if you decide to start with this.

 

[owas]

From the posts above are you looking at a tesco club card / rewards or vouchers that can be brought and gifted etc? If its the first one, "loyalty rewards" we found the best way to market this for a website where you wouldn't expect a lot of repeat orders you could offer rewards for things like social media share, newsletter sign up, recommend a friend.
I installed an extension a short while back called sweet tooth rewards, I recall it was free for a limited use.
If your looking at this to make vouchers that can be brought to be used as gift etc, If your on a low budget, I wouldn't bother adding any extension etc here. Just sell it as a down loadable product with the a few options such as send as email gift etc and just create a shopping cart rule with a unique discount code to that value each time you get an order for a voucher.
I think its nice to offer a voucher for any store, to give your customers that options and you ideal for things like charity raffle donations and so on.

 

[abellina]

Hi Laura,
Your idea is great.You can send gift cards to your customers on different events like on chrismas, new year etc.It will help in growing your business.

 

[MageWorx]

>> All in all, do gift cards make sense for a small business selling handbags,for example?
>> What's more gift cards remain popular mostly for the holiday season - and this is now too long

Sure. Gift cards can work fine for practically small business.

In addition to creating positive awareness of your brand and being an alternative means of payment, gift certificates can also be useful in many other ways.

Also, they can be popular throughout the year. For instance, those customers who might be low on cash, but in possession of a gift card, are more likely to choose your store regardless of the season. Gift Cards can be used as purchasing cards in cases where a customer wants to allow someone else to buy in your store, but not to have free rein with cash.

What is more, gift card solutions can help attract lots of new customers, even those who don't have credit cards.

Hence, adding this functionality to your store, can greatly help you in increase your profit.

P.S. If you are running a brand-new Magento-based store, try this simple, easy-to-use Gift Card extension.

If you need advanced gift card functionality, you may consider this tool.