Gift Cards Make Perfect Last Minute Holiday Gifts

Christmas Day is officially one week away! And as a business owner, you know exactly what that means. Last minute shoppers are on the loose! Perhaps, you’re one of them yourself. With a business to run, you clearly have a lot on your plate, which makes Christmas shopping a task you may not have a lot of time for. It’s a good thing that there is such thing as the perfect gift.

This “perfect gift”, by the way, is something that you should be offering at your place of business. It’s perfect for a number of reasons. Firstly, it guarantees recipients that they will be getting something they definitely want. Secondly, it makes for the easiest go-to, last minute gift idea around. That perfect gift, as you may have already guessed, is the gift card.

Gift cards and the holiday season practically go hand-in-hand. What’s easier to buy than a gift card? They are lightweight and super-easy to carry around – but let’s be honest, that’s not the main reason people buy them. As mentioned, they ensure that whoever receives them can buy what they like. They make shopping easy and most importantly for you, they make certain that your business will enjoy visits from new customers.

According to James Haggerty of TheTimes-Tribune.com, “more than 80 percent of shoppers will buy gift cards during the holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation, a Washington, D.C., trade group. Total holiday season gift-card spending will hit $29.8 billion, the association estimates, up about $1 billion from 2012. Average gift card spending will increase by 4 percent to $163, the group projects.”

Is there any doubt that gift cards provide businesses with heavy traffic? Keep in mind that most gift cards received during the holidays are redeemed in the new year. This means that you’ll be starting 2014 off with quite a bang! Your gift cards give you the opportunity to develop new relationships with customers who may never have visited your place of business before.

The bottom line is that gift cards – especially during the holidays – boost your business. It can be argued that reason number one is the fact that they are just simply so convenient. At least this is what Burt Flickinger III, a New York City retail consultant believes. “Gift cards are one of the easiest ways for shoppers to shop,” Haggerty quoted him as saying, “By giving gift cards, a person can buy what he or she wants.”

They are especially effective if customers can use them online. Even though giving your customers the opportunities to make purchases via the internet won’t necessarily increase your in-store traffic, it will definitely help to increase your sales. As we’ve blogged about in recent weeks, online shopping is all the rage. Statistics show that it will only get more popular in the coming years.

Are you providing gift cards to your customers? Make holiday shopping easy by giving them the option to pick up a card instead of a piece of merchandise. This is especially helpful during the last week of shopping before Christmas. Don’t let another holiday season pass by without offering gift cards. To order yours, contact Canadian POS Corporation at 1-877-748-2884.