Gift Cards

[Ed DiRuzza]

Hey everyone,

We have been getting approached by many of our stores who are looking for a more integrated solution to offering gift cards. As we all know, gift cards are a great way to increase revenue and advertise your store at the same time. With the holiday season fast approaching, we want to get your feedback on whether you think gift cards can work for you.

If you could take a few moments to write down your thoughts relating to the following topics, it would help us figure out a more viable and economical solution for our customers.

- Do you use Gift Cards now?
- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards?
- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them?
- How many do you sell in a year?
- What are most common dollar amounts sold?
- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time?
- Do you use an outside service to track the balances?
- What did you pay for the cards? For how many?
- Do you have to pay per swipe?
- Do you feel it's worth it? If not, what would make it worth it?
- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty?
- If you're not using gift cards, what's the biggest hurdle stopping you? Upfront cost? Ability to track them? Give us your thoughts.

[nhabramson]

Gift Cards

- Do you use Gift Cards now?
No we use paper certificates

- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards?

Paper

- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them?

we did have our logos and such custom printed on the cards

- How many do you sell in a year?

50

- What are most common dollar amounts sold?

$25

- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time?

year round as they make a great baby shower gift

- Do you use an outside service to track the balances?

no

- What did you pay for the cards?
N/A

For how many?
N/A

- Do you have to pay per swipe?

N/A
- Do you feel it's worth it? If not, what would make it worth it?
- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty?

- If you're not using gift cards, what's the biggest hurdle stopping you? Upfront cost? Ability to track them? Give us your thoughts.

Integration with our system either through X-Charge/Global or another database. If it were just a swipe we would sell far more gift cards. Simply put customers who have gift cards spend more money because they think of gift cards as free $ even though it was previously paid for. A Customer with a $25 gift card typically spends $60 in our store. We would sell more if we had cards vs. a paper hard to track gift certificate. So we would love for you to add this feature to the system it would be another great way that Liberty could make us money!

[JARREDS]

- Do you use Gift Cards now?
YES

- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards?
YES (via First Data & Telecheck) b/c liberty couldn't integrate with x-charge gift card

- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them?
Custom/Generic (Name w/ Image being generic) See: http://jarreds.shoprw.com/product.ph...9&cat=0&page=1

- How many do you sell in a year?
Just Started a month ago, we offer them to consigors as a a way to take a check too... they get 60% instead of 20%

- What are most common dollar amounts sold?
50-100

- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time?
Just Started a month ago, we offer them to consigors as a a way to take a check too... they get 60% instead of 20%


- Do you use an outside service to track the balances?
YES (via First Data & Telecheck) b/c liberty couldn't integrate with x-charge gift card

- What did you pay for the cards? For how many?
$99 for 100 printed, and with holders

- Do you have to pay per swipe?
YES .10 cents

- Do you feel it's worth it? If not, what would make it worth it?
YES --> would have been nice to integrate with liberty/x-charge

- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty?
YES!!!! Reports!

- If you're not using gift cards, what's the biggest hurdle stopping you? Upfront cost? Ability to track them? Give us your thoughts.

[klassykidz]

Hi Ed,

- Do you use Gift Cards now?
We generate paper certificates mostly for donations to silent auctions, etc

- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards?
No

- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them?
I create them and print on card stock

- How many do you sell in a year?
Currently less than 10, but we do not market or advertise we have them.

- What are most common dollar amounts sold?
$25

- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time?
Anytime

- Do you use an outside service to track the balances?
No, just add store credit to their account and let POS handle it

- What did you pay for the cards? For how many?
N/A

- Do you have to pay per swipe?
N/A

- Do you feel it's worth it? If not, what would make it worth it?
I believe it would be good to offer them year round.

- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty?
Yes, I would prefer that

- If you're not using gift cards, what's the biggest hurdle stopping you? Upfront cost? Ability to track them? Give us your thoughts.
I looked into the cards from Cynergy a few years back, but the startup cost didn't appeal to me. So I guess I would say cost is the major factor. There is just not much wiggle room for us because of the smaller ticket price on children's clothing versus woman's or furniture.

Hope that helps some.

[christine]

Ed & Dean..You Asked...!!

Funny you asked this today. In 11/08, I purchased a gift card processing package from Gava Systems based on recommendations from a colleague on the TGTBT site. Wanted to go slow so I only bought a basic package. Just got an E-Mail this morning announcing that the basic program is being discontinued although support will last another year. Want us to upgrade. It is self-contained and works fine. Little need for support. Won't be upgrading. Would love to incorporate into Liberty since my staff is "confused" about handling gift cards. Thanks for asking and I'm curious to hear how others feel.


Do you use Gift Cards now? YES
- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards? YES
- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them?
Custom Designed
- How many do you sell in a year? Since November 2008 we've sold many, have used them as "thanks" rewards and offered them to local chairty auctions. Not sure of exact number
- What are most common dollar amounts sold? $25, $50 and $100. We use $5 and $10 for "Thanks"
- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time? ALL YEAR LONG
- Do you use an outside service to track the balances? YES, SORT OF. GAVA SYSTEMS IS A PACKAGE THAT IS INSTALLED ON ONE COMPUTER.
- What did you pay for the cards? For how many? BOUGHT 500 - NOT SURE OF COST.
- Do you have to pay per swipe? NO
- Do you feel it's worth it? If not, what would make it worth it? ABSOLUTELY
- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty? YES & NO - DEPENDS ON COST AND IF CURRENT CARD BAR CODES ARE COMPATIBLE. WOULD PREFER TO USE LIBERTY
- If you're not using gift cards, what's the biggest hurdle stopping you? Upfront cost? Ability to track them? Give us your thoughts.
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[alexissuitcase]

Our gift card answers

- Do you use Gift Cards now?
Yes
- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards?
No, they are printed out in house on business card stock

- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them?
We just made them in Word with our logo and design

- How many do you sell in a year?
10-20

- What are most common dollar amounts sold?
$25-50

- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time?
All year long

- Do you use an outside service to track the balances?
No, an excel spreadsheet

- What did you pay for the cards? For how many?
maybe $15 for 100 paper stock cards

- Do you have to pay per swipe?
n/a

- Do you feel it's worth it? If not, what would make it worth it?
yes, would love to sell more

- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty?
Yes! I think it would be terrific if Xcharge and liberty got together to get a credit card style gift card that the customer could purchase for gifts or get in leiu of checks, or we could mail out as incentives. Would definitely be a great addition to the software that I would sign up for!

- If you're not using gift cards, what's the biggest hurdle stopping you? Upfront cost? Ability to track them? Give us your thoughts

-Jayna from Alexis' Suitcase Consignment Boutique
2 Atlanta Locations
www.alexissuitcase.com

[Janis Jones]

Yes, we use gift cards

- Do you use Gift Cards now?
- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards? Yes
- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them? Custom logo
- How many do you sell in a year? 20 or so
- What are most common dollar amounts sold? $25
- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time? All year round, especially at Christmas time
- Do you use an outside service to track the balances? No, bought a program that we track on one workstation
- What did you pay for the cards? It was several years ago, I paid $350 for the Alacard program then paid $500 for 1000 GCs say 7 or 8 years ago.
- Do you have to pay per swipe? Nada,as it is self-contained on one WS
- Do you feel it's worth it? If not, what would make it worth it?
- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty? YES! I would pony up to buy new GCs that we could track within Liberty.
- One thing that we do differently with our current gift cards: when a high school or 4-H group approaches us to donate gift certificates for "post prom parties" or style shows, we give ten $5 gift cards as prizes so the same $50 public relations promotion brings in ten little 4-H shoppers to spend their $5. It is great exposure for us for the same moola.
-

[Tacksolutions]

Do you use Gift Cards now? Yes
- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards? No
- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them? Yes
- How many do you sell in a year? 10 to 20
- What are most common dollar amounts sold? $100
- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time? All Year
- Do you use an outside service to track the balances? No
- What did you pay for the cards? Mine our paper w/ envelope for about $86 For how many? 500
- Do you have to pay per swipe? no
- Do you feel it's worth it? If not, what would make it worth it?
- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty?
- If you're not using gift cards, what's the biggest hurdle stopping you? Upfront cost? Ability to track them? Give us your thoughts.

I have a printing company make gift cards for me that have my logo and a envelope for mailing. These cards are paper and the buyer can fill in who it is from and for what and I fill in the $ amount and put a code on the back so I can track the card.
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[nek8947]

Gift Cards

I don't use them at the present time. I use a stand-a-lone credit card machine - would they work with them?

I only sell a couple gift certificates (paper) in a year so not sure it would be worthwhile for my store.

Nancy
The Exchange

[Tracy@MBFC]

- Do you use Gift Cards now? Yes, with ConsignPro, recently converted to Liberty and definetly miss the Gift Card feature.

- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards? Yes, with a barcode. I gave Dean a sample at the NARTS conf.

- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them?Ordered them online with our logo. I will have to check into the company if you would like more info. I thought they were VERY reasonable.

- How many do you sell in a year? 50-100-

What are most common dollar amounts sold? Anywhere from $20 to $100. They are reloadable. We also make them up to use as $5 giveaways


- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time? All year long

- Do you use an outside service to track the balances? No, all within ConsignPro, but now with Liberty it is causing headaches as we still have to use CP to track balances

- What did you pay for the cards? For how many? I believe it was $130 for 1000 cards. I will have to verify when i get to work.


- Do you have to pay per swipe? No

- Do you feel it's worth it? If not, what would make it worth it? This is a feature I miss very much and promoted heavily year round.

- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty? Yes, it would be much more efficient. Not to mention if CP can do it then L4C should be a piece of cake -

If you're not using gift cards, what's the biggest hurdle stopping you? Upfront cost? Ability to track them? Give us your thoughts.[/QUOTE]

[Glenda]

Gift Cards

Do you use Gift Cards? Yes
Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards? Yes
Are they generic or do you have your logo on them? They have the store name on them but not the logo
How many do you sell in a year? About a 100
What is the most common dollar amount sold? 25.00
Do you sell them all year long or mainly at Christmas? We sell them all year round, certainly we sell more of them at Christmas
Do you use an outside service to track the balances? Yes
What do you pay for the cards? I believe it was about 400.00 for 500 cards imprinted with the store name. This also included a nice gift enclosure card.
Do you have to pay per swipe? Yes
Do you feel it's worth it? Yes, the card looks professional and fits the image I want for my store
Would it make a difference if everything was tracked with Liberty - the conversion has still not happened from Consignment Success to Liberty so I'm not on Liberty yet :-( however Angel is working diligently with my husband to try to make it happen. If it was possible to have the gift cards as part of the consignment software that would be fantastic!

I use the same company for loyalty cards as well as gift cards.

[patinainteriors]

Gift Cards

Do you use Gift Cards now? Yes
- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards? Paper
- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them?Custom
- How many do you sell in a year? 10 (but it is mostly by customer inquiries)
- What are most common dollar amounts sold? $50 & $100
- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time? All year long, but mostly at Christmas
- Do you use an outside service to track the balances? No, Spreadsheet
- What did you pay for the cards? For how many? $0
- Do you have to pay per swipe? $0
- Do you feel it's worth it? If not, what would make it worth it? For the few that we sell, it works for us.- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty? Potentially
- If you're not using gift cards, what's the biggest hurdle stopping you? Upfront cost? Ability to track them? Give us your thoughts Do not really see a need, but to be fair, we do a pretty poor job of marketing them.

[gailg]

Gift Cards

We currently use a generic paper certificate.

Sell about 25 per year - no big increase for Christmas - avg certificate $25

I would absolutely LOVE to see the Reward Card and Gift Card tracked through Liberty. While I doubt that most of us currently sell allot of gift certificates, the potential is there for increasing sales, if done right. Particularly this year!

IMHO, plastic cards are most desirable, but more important than the material, is having my logo on the card, the whole branding thing. We want to increase the impulse buy, especially for the holidays, so presentation is key. A display stand and nice matching jacket, or gift box for the card, seems more important to me than the actual material of the card. Swiping a magnetic card is easy, but to save cost, a heavyweight card stock (with our own design) and your upc labels affixed to the backside could be used. I recently priced laminating the card stock to do just that.

If you were to coordinate the whole plastic card thing, I encourage you to offer a generic card to keep the cost lower, but, also a customizable option for those of us wanting to keep the brand thing going.

PLEASE do not put specific $ amounts on the card. Loading the card ourselves with specific $ amounts would help cut down on the number of cards we have to have available, (saving costs) and the amount can easily be written on the card jacket.

As we have recently discussed, reward program reports are at the top of my NEED list. Identifying and selling more to our current customers is critical, especially now, for all of us. Being able to sell and track gift cards would be a nice bonus, but not nearly as critical.

Thanks for working on ways to make Liberty work even better for us!

gail gill
The Clothes Horse
Orchard Park, NY
716.662.1136

[Suigeneris]

Gift Card need it...

- Do you use Gift Cards now: yes

- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards? no we design & print them here

- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them? we insert our store logo; gets more attention and keep the unique of our business

- How many do you sell in a year? 30

- What are most common dollar amounts sold? $50, $100

- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time? all year long but mostly the 70% on xmas.

- Do you use an outside service to track the balances? for one time use only.

- What did you pay for the cards? For how many? nice print thick paper maybe 20 dlls for all..

- Do you have to pay per swipe? I did in the past.

- Do you feel it's worth it? NO

If not, what would make it worth it? the volume of sale was not enough to keep paying the service

- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty? YES.

- If you're not using gift cards, what's the biggest hurdle stopping you?
Upfront cost? Ability to track them? Give us your thoughts.
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I would like to use gift cards but will be better to be included as a part of the liberty service; and better just to sell the gift card as an item and have separate payment option to pay this... and not incurre in charge for swap the car all the time.

[Bobbid]

- Do you use Gift Cards now?
We use gift and loyalty cards through a program with the company Valutec
- Are they the plastic ones that look like credit cards?
yes
- Are they generic looking or did you have custom art work put on them?
Custom artwork - wanted people to associate the card with our logo.
- How many do you sell in a year?
We sell only about 50 a year but with our loyalty cards reward program "give away" about 1,000 a year.
- What are most common dollar amounts sold?
We sell a lot of $5.00 ones because we also sell new specialty toys and they are used at stocking stuffers. Mostly $25.00 otherwise.
- Do you sell them all year long or do you sell them mostly around Christmas time?
More at holidays
- Do you use an outside service to track the balances?
Yes
- What did you pay for the cards? For how many?
When you sign up you get a bunch free - after that they are 45 cents each.
- Do you have to pay per swipe?
You get so many swipes free each year and then I think it is about 10 cents per swipe.

- Do you feel it's worth it? If not, what would make it worth it?

The loyalty cards (not the gift cards that people buy from us) have been the best form of advertising we have.
- Would it make a difference if everything was tracked within Liberty?
I do not use the POS feature at my register - my loyalty/gift card processing is done using my charge card processor. Unless there was a huge price savings it would be more difficult for me.
- If you're not using gift cards, what's the biggest hurdle stopping you? Upfront cost? Ability to track them? Give us your thoughts.

The Next Generation
Stoughton, Wi
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