Online Sales of Gift Cards

Monday, 11 October 2010

Expand your customer reach by selling cards online....

A vital element of a successful gift card programmes is having a strong multi-channel strategy in place (effectively, selling your cards in as many places as possible). Whatever the size of your business or the number of outlets you have, the online world is becoming an important channel, allowing you to reach beyond your local customer base.

But how? There are several ways you can launch online from totally outsourcing the online sale and redemption of your gift cards to managing the process yourself in-house.

Did you know:

• Online sales continue to outperform high street retail sales and Christmas 2009 Online sales grew by over 26%  according to the British Retail Consortium.
• Logan Tod‘s Annual Online Shopping Index predicts that online sales will hit £1.26 billion during the Christmas 2010 shopping season, with UK consumers intending to do 23% more shopping online than they did in 2009.
• The research, which reviews and predicts consumers’ attitudes towards online Christmas spend, found that shoppers purchased over half of their gifts online last Christmas.
• Cost remains the most important factor for the majority of shoppers, with just under 70% choosing to shop online due to competitive prices.
• As in the two previous years, the 2010 Index showed the largest growth is in the ‘adopters’ age group, 45+, who are becoming increasingly comfortable shopping online. These shoppers are more focused on convenience, with the primary reasons given for shopping online being prices, store opening times, home delivery and avoiding crowds.
• According to an Article in Marketing Week Online purchases of gift cards experienced a 27% growth for Q4 in 2009 (UKGCVA).

The upshot is, regardless of how big you are, if you don’t sell online you’re missing a massive opportunity. Somebody who lives abroad will never know your gift cards exist and, therefore won’t buy them.  However, if they are online, that same person could find them on Google and buy one for her nephew who DOES live near you. 

Which retailers are selling gift cards online?

Online sales of gift cards are not just limited to National High Street brands such as Argos, Marks and Spencer and Next. In fact, any retailer with an online presence can benefit from selling cards online (one of our own customers, Footasylum, has been selling their cards online for over a year now).

Online gift card stores are also becoming an increasingly important channel with www.svmcards.co.uk, www.thegiftcardcentre.co.uk and www.voucherexpress.co.uk all selling third party retailer gift cards online.