How Can Gift Cards Increase Your Business?

Selling electronic Gift Cards is a booming business for both restaurant and retailers because it encourages higher spending and repeat visits by your customers. Gift Card holders typically spend more than the value of the card itself and purchases made with a Gift Card are 20% -50% higher than the value of the card.  Increase your cash flow (generated by the card sale) while reducing your bookkeeping and tracking costs results in greater profits usually associated with this type of transaction.  All balancing information is maintained electronically and calculated by the system. Manual paperwork associated with the old fashioned ‘gift certificates’ are completely eliminated.   

With the advent of restaurant and retail point of sale ( POS ) solutions come advantages that the small business owner once only dreamed about. The simplification and control of Gift Card sales and redemptions provide a means on which business owners can depend for increasing sales, increasing cash flow, increasing customer loyalty and generating more income at lower cost than ever before!  

Increase Marketing and Name Awareness

Gift Cards themselves represent a marketing and promotional tool and provide a competitive edge against larger rivals. A Gift Card can be artistic and attractively produced and is itself a form of advertisement.  The Gift Card is kept with other important ‘plastic’ cards and inherently viewed as valuable, especially when compared to the gift certificate paper form. Readily available to the holder at all times, easy to transport and easy to use, the Gift Card increases customer loyalty, name awareness and increased business for both restaurant and retail merchants.  

Reduce Fraud and Improve Security

Sales and redemptions of Gift Cards, unlike their predecessor the gift certificate, are easy to maintain and control.  They can be treated like credit cards and literally processed in seconds.  Swipe the card to record the sale in any denomination you like and redeem it in a similar fashion.  The Gift Card information is stored in the financial reports of your point of sale system or on-line with the Gift Card processor. There is nothing difficult to understand and no security issues to worry about.  No paperwork to track or manual balances to maintain.  The system is controlled and highly secure and a multitude of reports are instantaneously available showing all important financial data.

Save time at Check Out:

Gift Cards are easy to handle and monitor. Fraud is reduced since they cannot be activated until they are sold to a customer through the point of sale system and the money accounted for as if it were cash. Tracking is enhanced since most POS systems generate financial reports that are up-to-the-minute or this information can be retrieved on a password controlled  and secure internet site.  Sales or redemptions literally take seconds and your customer is processed through the check out line in an organized and highly efficient manner.

Gift Cards have become ‘the’ marketing tool to increase sales, improve cash and customer flow while reducing bookkeeping and monitoring costs.  Small business owners can take advantage of a technology that was once beyond their reach and can compete with their largest competitors. 

Ask a knowledgeable RCS representative more about this great new technology and how it can benefit your business, regardless of whether you are food service or retail based.  For information on-line you can click on this link www.mercurypay.com or in our POS section.