I wrote the original blog post about gift cards and gift certicates last year during the holiday season, but I wanted to revisit this method of bringing in last minute revenue in the 4th quarter for your attraction. Part of the reason I wanted to share this again was because of this article in USAToday last week. Gift card purchases are up 2% yearly and people who redeem them spend an average of $38 more than the value of the card!
Original post from 2016 on Gift cards and Gift Certificates:
We are in full swing for the holiday season and it seems that every day my inbox is full of daily specials, the TV is telling us what toys are most popular and everyone is trying to find time to shop on their lunch hour. For the most part though, the majority of us are procrastinators. If you work at a tourism attraction, you can use that behavior to boost your fourth quarter sales. A minimum amount of work on your staff’s part makes selling gift certificates even better!
I was listening to NPR on the way to work the other day and they were discussing shopping trends. The interviewee said the busiest shopping day of the year is Black Friday, followed by December 26th. But what caught my ear was the third busiest shopping day of the year- December 23rd. All the last-minute shoppers are out trying to find gifts from the slim pickings that are left. It’s too late to order online, so shoppers are looking to get anything they can! That’s where gift certificates from your attraction come in. You can help solve your customer’s problem by providing gift certificates.
Why Gift Certificates make sense for your tourism business
Giving gift certificates is on the rise, according to this article. And December 24th is the biggest day of the year for gift certificate purchases. Gift certificate purchases have increased 55% between 2007 and 2014, and Giftcards.com says that growth continues at about 29% a year. More interesting statistics if you aren’t convinced yet:
- 27% of gift cards are purchased at the retailers location
- 72% of gift certificate recipients spend MORE than the value of the gift certificate
- 90% of cards are used within the first 60 days
What is the difference between a gift card and a gift certificate?
A gift card has money loaded on to it and if the total isn’t used during a purchase, a balance remains. A gift certificate is a paper certificate. If a balance remains after a purchase, most businesses just mark the new balance on the card. Gift certificates are easy for small attractions to use. Vistaprint has some great templates and you can customize them for your business. Gift cards are typically more expensive to create, but costs of production have dropped over the past few years.
So now you know that you should be offering them if you aren’t, and how easy they are to obtain. It makes sense to develop a sales strategy around gift certificates. Can you incentivize your staff to see who can sell the most? Are there other holidays that would be good times to feature gift certificates? Father’s day and Mother’s day are great times for Gift certificate sales as well. Make sure your potential customers know that you sell them- either via social media or advertising.
Gift certificates are a smart way to increase your bottom line, bring more traffic through your doors or your website, and to find new customers. Let me know if you have any questions or if you have some tips to share with the other readers.