Feature
Maximize Holiday Profits Using
Gift Cards
By Jeff Haefner
Why your store needs to have a gift card program
Gift cards have changed the face of retailing, and sales of gift cards are expected to jump 25 percent to $35 billion this holiday season, according to a survey released last month by Archstone Consulting.
In 2006 gift cards surpassed apparel as the #1 gift. According to a recent USA Today article entitled "Gift Cards Change Way Retailers Do Business", it is reported, "This year, consumers bought $24.8 billion in gift cards, 34% more than in 2005. Gift card sales rose only 7% from 2004 to 2005, and 0.5% the year before."
The success of gift cards is well documented and has become so popular that many large retailers are selling more of them than any other single item on their shelves.
Gift cards are low overhead, have high pay-back, and hot holiday sellers which is mostly because most retailers have done an excellent job of convincing the American public there is nothing impersonal about giving the gift card of choice.
As retailers anticipate increased sales in gift cards this holiday season, it is time to shore up in their marketing momentum. January is no longer used as the traditional clearance month to empty stores of winter merchandise. It is the time shoppers will be coming back after the holidays to redeem their gift cards, providing more added sales for retailers.
Here are some of the value points of accepting gift cards ...
- Increases profitability 20-50% or more
- Enables fast gift card transactions which processes in seconds like credit cards
- Provides secure processing, eliminating the fraud associated with paper based programs.
- Strengthens customer loyalty
- Offers easy administration and tracks liabilities
- Allows easy access to balances
- Presents a promotional value where gift cards act as "walking advertisements"
There is greater efficiency, speed and security when you integrate your processing directly through Retail Pro at the point of sale. With integrated processing, it eliminates slow dial-up and stand-alone terminals.
Gift card processing at point of sale also reduces fraud caused by stand-alones, as well as errors caused by over or under-ringing sales on a stand-alone.
Retail Pro's integrated processing supports Address Verification and CCV2, critical features for phone/mail order sales. Visa/MC charges you penalty fees for not doing Address Verifications when you key-in sales.
To allow processing directly through Retail Pro at the point of sale, One Step Retail Solutions partnered with their preferred processor, The Bart Group / Chase Payment Tech, now offering a 30% discount on the Retail Pro processing module PC Charge or Shift4 payment solutions for both credit and gift cards.
This is not the time to be slowed down with slow dial-up stand-alone terminals for credit and gift card processing. To compete today, Retailers need lightening fast credit card processing at point of sale and need to be able to provide and process gift cards at point of sale, as well.
