Gift cards are a popular gift item allowing the holder to shop at the retailer or business credited on the card. This allows the consumer to choose from the company's product line at his own discretion. To order gift cards for your business, there are several companies offering a range of gift cards, rewards cards, and other incentives for your business needs.

Selecting a Gift Card Design

Design specifications will vary between gift card design companies. Some offer a range of pre-made designs, which include your company's name and several lines of text on the card. Others will offer custom templates at an additional cost, allowing you to include your company logo, colors, fonts and images to your specifications. Check with the company's specifications.

Numbering & Magnetic Strips

Depending on the size of your business and your needs, gift card companies offer additional features their cards. These include numbering systems, bar codes and magnetic strips. The numbering systems are a great way for your company to track the inventory of your cards. For example, if your company has multiple locations or is being used as a test marketing piece, numbers can be assigned to your specifications (e.g., gift cards at location X start with "9999" and location Y start with "8888"). Magnetic strips can be added to your gift card, and are highly attractive to larger businesses with electronic sales reporting software. These magnetic strips provide additional security (ie., scratch-off activation keys which lock and unlock the magnetic strip), as well as allow customers and businesses to keep track of remaining balances on the cards.

Considerations

Some gift card companies only offer plastic gift card designs without any integration of the funds into your company's business, meaning the gift cards are handled in a manual fashion with its own separate inventory and money system. This is convenient for small businesses who do not use electronic databases and sales reporting software. Larger businesses with electronic reporting systems may be interested in paying a premium to allow gift card holders to spend the gift card money in a way similar to using a credit card. Check with the terms and conditions of each card provider. Some gift card companies will pass on an administrative charge to the customer for their purchase. These charges can be flat fees to percentages of the final sale. Preset denominations (e.g., $20, $50, $100) may be an attractive option for your business, as well as a reloading option onto the card to sustain continuous value.

Source:

Gift Certificate Central

Gift Card Sales

Visa Gift Cards

More Information:

Rescue Marketing

Gift Certificates