Boost Your Fall Sales By Promoting Gift Cards

September is officially underway. For many Canadians, this is actually a bit of a depressing time of year. With schools about to re-open, our summer vacations have effectively come to a close. And, on the 22^nd of September, the summer season will have officially ended.

This doesn’t have to be a bad time of year for your business, however. In fact, the impending start of fall gives you the opportunity to create an entirely new marketing strategy to promote your business. At Canadian POS, we think one of the best ways to boost sales this fall is to promote your gift cards!

Create a new festive design.

Not every Canadian sings the blues once the summer is done. Many love the fall season. Join them in their high spirits by designing your gift cards to welcome the fall. Orange, yellow and brown leaves, pumpkins, people wearing sweaters – the design choices are plenty! According to Holly Everett on Upserve.com, creating a new design for gift cards is an especially good idea for restaurants.

“Make sure they’re also branded with your restaurant logo and colours so recipients know where they’re heading,” she advises, “Sometimes all it takes is a festive gift card to catch a customer’s eye to remind them that they’ve forgotten a couple of people on their gift-giving list. A gift card to their favourite bar or restaurant is the perfect solution.”

Place your gift cards at the checkout.

In some cases, location is everything. The selling of gift cards presents one of those cases. Because gift cards are small and lightweight, it’s fairly easy to create a display that showcases many of them at the point of purchase. Remember that, for many consumers, gift cards are impulse buys.

As Rieva Lesonsky points out on SmallBizTrends.com, “gift cards are often an impulse (or desperation) buy, so putting an attractive display with gift cards, envelopes, gift-card bags or gift-card cases near your registers can really boost sales.

Use gift cards to reward your loyal customers.

Your gift cards shouldn’t just be regarded as products for sale. They are also excellent advertising mechanisms. Consider the level of customer satisfaction you’ll achieve when you gift a customer with a gift card. Why not create a loyalty program that offers your customers free gift cards after they’ve made a certain number of purchases? This initiative will work wonders in getting shoppers to keep coming back.

“If you have a loyalty program in place, try using gift cards instead of or in addition to discounts,” suggests Lesonsky, “Gift cards have higher perceived value than discounts, so they’re more successful at getting customers into your business.”

Launch your new electronic gift cards.

Not all gift cards come in plastic, rectangular form. These days, e-gift cards are all the rage! They are codes emailed to recipients that can be used the same way as any physical gift cards. Electronic gift cards are known to encourage repeat business, attract new customers and boost sales all year long!

To begin offering electronic gift cards to your customers, please don’t hesitate to call Canadian POS at 1-877-748-2884. You may also email us at info@localhost.