SHOPLINE ACADEMY l Free e-Commerce and Digital Marketing Resources

Gift cards make for the perfect seasonal boost in sales, particularly when offered online from a business perspective; it’s more than just selling gift cards. In short, gift cards offer the most direct discounts for customers, allowing you to acquire new customers, increase customer loyalty and repurchase rate. It opens doors to deeper customer relationships and additional marketing opportunities. 

Gift cards make excellent gifts for any occasion. The reason for its popularity as they are easy to purchase, and it takes away the stress of personalised gift. Businesses can sell gift cards throughout the year and even more during the holiday season. With the upcoming Christmas season around the corner, it makes the perfect final seasonal boost in sales for the year! 

The global marketing for gift cards is estimated to reach US1.4 Trillion by 2026 – Research and Markets

Businesses that sell or give away gift cards can secure immediate cash flow in advance, as it allows them to redeem at any time. And Gift givers are essentially your brand ambassadors, so you want to ensure recipients and givers alike are left feeling uplifted by their experience.

Gift cards also represent a cost-effective advertising method that can help keep your business top of mind with digital gift cards promote your brand messaging with online customers.

Advantages of selling Gift Cards: Acquire new customers when they receive gift cards to use in your store Encourage repurchases from newly acquired customers Enhance customer loyalty with discounted gift cards Increase profit margins: not everyone will fully utilise the gift cards or use it before expiry!

However, 79% of shoppers will scramble to buy last-minute gifts, pushing the limits of your shipping deadlines. With gift cards, your business can boost sales over the busy peak period. For instance, late shoppers who are searching for a gift in your store can quickly purchase a gift card, and it is very common for gift card receivers to spend more than the value of the gift card.

With SHOPLINE, no matter if you want to start selling digital gift cards with your business name or a quick message or custom cards, we’ve got you covered. 

Start your 14-day free trial and set up a simple SHOPLINE store to sell gift cards today.

Setting up a SHOPLINE store to sell gift cards

We have created a guide for setting up your own gift card in 10 mins.

1. Creating your gift card

Let’s create a digital gift card. Log in to your SHOPLINE store and click on Products > Gift Cards, or click here. You can set up your own gift card by clicking “Create a gift card product” and editing the gift card information. Additionally, you can distribute to your loyal clients by clicking on Products > Gift Cards > Distribute Gift Cards or click here.

Your gift card product can be customised from there:

1. • Product Title: What your gift card will be called. Make it clear what it is your customer is purchasing.
     
   • Product Summary: Allow you to describe your product without making your client read the entire product description.
   • Product Description: Where you can describe your product accurately and define its features and benefits, its function and limits.
   • Product image/video: You can set any default gift card image to present your gift card or quickly create a custom image using Canva’s gift certificate template.
   • Gift card value: You can set different amounts that customers can purchase here.
   • Product settings: Choose the sales channel on which you want your product to sell.

When you’re done, click Add, and your gift card will be created.

Optional step – You can highlight your gift card on your homepage in a separate section. Click on add component and select Feature products (Select gift card product).

You may also create a separate tab in your store’s navigation menu so your customers can easily identify that you sell digital gift cards. By clicking on Online store > Navigation.

2. Marketing

Marketing your online store/product through social media, email, and word of mouth. SHOPLINE has lots of great marketing tools that you can explore! – be creative! 

3. Managing gift card sales

Now that you have built and launched your store, here’s what happens with your gift cards when customers purchase them, plus what you can do with them.

Gift card orders will all appear under Orders when customers purchase them. If you have set up integrated payments, you do not need to do anything when new orders come in. 

To see a full list of your active gift cards, head to Products > Gift Cards. Each gift card is tracked there, and you can view all client data, the balance remaining on each gift card, and the date the card was purchased.

Gift cards will be redeemable through your SHOPLINE store at a future date, even as you add new items.

Next steps to consider

Now you have fully launched your online store and started selling customised gift cards, here are some ways you can take your online store even further.

• Add other products to your online store
• Set up “buy online, pickup curbside” delivery option for customers
• Set up Facebook chat widget for customer service
• Advertise your online store via Facebook and/or Google Ads
• Connect your Facebook and Instagram shop
• Explore theme and app store to customise your store further
• Customise your emails to your customers
• Add staff member