eCommerce Gift Cards: 7 Key Roles In Retail Business Growth

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global market for Gift Cards estimated at US$767.4 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$1.4 Trillion by 2026. – Research And Markets

eCommerce Gift cards require minimal effort in creation but are definite sales magnets for products & services. Contrary to the name, gift cards are also used for personal use, not just gifting. No wonder why they are so popular.

Although selling gift cards isn’t a new sales flavor in the retail business, it is widely growing and is appreciated in all industrial sectors.

The eCommerce sector heavily relies on gift cards as a leading marketing and sales strategy, mainly because gift cards are easy to purchase and take away the stress of selecting a personalized gift. Also, gift cards sell throughout the year, even more during the holiday season.

In this article, I’ll also discuss seven key roles of eCommerce gift cards and the implementation of gift cards in your WooCommerce store.

Table Of Contents

What are eCommerce Gift Cards? How Does it Work?

An eCommerce gift card is a prepaid card that holds a certain monetary value. The recipient can redeem the gift cards to avail of discounts or purchase products and services.

When you purchase gift cards online, a coupon code is generated and sent to your email address or number. It is a popular digital gifting option for customers and sells like hot cake during the holiday season.

Mostly, stores use gift cards to allow users to own fixed credit for a limited time, which they can mostly redeem within the same store. Some merchants also prefer selling 3rd party gift cards and re-sell gift cards of top brands.

7 Key Roles of eCommerce Gift Cards In Promoting Retail Businesses

eCommerce gift card programs are easy to implement and affordable for businesses of all sizes. Consider these seven key roles of gift cards in promoting your business.

1. eCommerce Gift Cards Are True Revenue Boosters

Gift cards double your sales and revenue. The first round of revenue is generated when the gift cards are purchased by your customer. When the card owner returns to redeem gift cards, it also generates revenue because users end up spending more than the card value.

During the holiday, customers actively look for a gift card solution because they don’t have time to select complex gifts for people they are close with.

A study estimates that 95% of all American households have either bought or received gift cards, with an average of 5 gift cards per shopper annually, spending an estimated $256 in total. – Blackhawk Network

2. Gift Cards Attract More Traffic And New Leads

Gift cards for retail stores do work in getting value from customer inflow, meaning festivals, weekends, and holidays are ideal for selling. But they depend on customers to visit & buy gift cards. So, even something as basic as bad weather can affect physical gift card sales.

But eCommerce digital gift cards are unaffected by weather conditions or pandemics.

“Between Black Friday and Christmas Eve, the value of physical gift cards is down nearly a fifth (22%) vs 2019 and down 7.9% since 2021. Digital gift cards, on the other hand, have seen the value of sales increase by a whopping 77% since 2019 for the same time period, while the value of digital gift cards sold also increased by 4.6% since 2021.” – Paytronix

The ease of purchase and distribution of digital gift cards is the biggest factor contributing to its growth and elevated user experience. You don’t have to plow through heaps of snow to deliver gifts, we have Santa for that.

So, sip your hot chocolate and send digital gift cards to your loved ones.

Online stores selling gift cards received better traffic, which brings new leads and potentially loyal customers into your fold.

3. Gift Cards Promotes Customer Loyalty

Many eCommerce retailers offer gift card programs during the holiday spree. The aim is simple – to increase loyalty with current customers. Giving away offers like-

A free $10 gift card to customers who purchase $100 in the x-product category $20 gift card to customers who purchase $150 gift cards, etc.

These offers might convince your customer to spend more, increasing your average sale of gift cards. You can make these bonus gift cards a bait to attract your customer post-festive season to increase your off-season sales.

4. Easy Alternatives For Refunds, Returns, And Exchanges

Although holidays and festive seasons witness exponential sales. But it is a hard truth that the same businesses often come across the bundle of return/refund requests also.

According to the National Retail Federation, 17.8% of holiday merchandise sold during the 2021 holiday season was returned.

There can be many possible reasons for the postseason refund/return requests but how the businesses can take this as an opportunity to reboot their customers and make a fair deal for themselves is a point of consideration.

And this is where the gift cards check-in. To convert your return requests into an opportunity to improve sales, provide your customers with a gift card of similar value as the return along with a personalized apology message to make them feel empathy towards you and your brand.

5. Gift Cards Helps You Compete With Major Retailers

Big brands largely focus on the commonalities between their customer base and selling according to buyer personas. Good on them because personalization requires products that can be personalized and accurate customer data.

Thankfully, you can easily customize or personalize eCommerce digital gift cards for customers. Better yet, you can sell customizable gift cards and let users personalize the gift card to their liking.

6. eCommerce Gift Cards Are Catalysts To Increase Holiday-Season Sales

eCommerce businesses also experience a holiday sales rush. And gift cards are a great support for all business types to keep their holiday sales spirit high.

Gift cards make holiday sales brighter for everyone, from gym and spa subscriptions to restaurant and club memberships. Not limited to memberships only, gift cards are the best choice for last-minute buyers and women on a shopping spree.

Note: Selling duration-based gift cards is perfect for promoting subscription products and services.

Since gift cards are preferred, they play a major role in increasing holiday sales. Even Google Trends of the last five years show an increase in gift card demand during the Christmas season.

7. Gift Cards Multiply Off-Season Sales Too

Birthdays, Anniversaries, Achievements, and moments of celebration never come watching the clock. They happen when they’re meant to be. And when there is a moment of celebration, giftings automatically skate in.

Thereby, eCommerce gift cards are always trending in special digital giftings. Surely, one does need a reason or occasion to share gifts. But one doesn’t need to wait around the year for the holiday season to share the gift cards.

Now, as you are well aware of the roles that gift cards play in growing a business, it’s time to learn the implementation.

How To Setup Gift Cards On Your WooCommerce Store

Gift Cards for WooCommerce Pro are a complete gift card solution to help you sell gift cards on your online store and grow your business.

This gift card plugin delivers you a variety of features and options to grow your sales and revenue in explicit ways without restricting yourself or your customers.

It also helps you with the easy management of gift cards and tracking their performance and usage with time. Our WooCommerce Gift Cards are a genuine solution to serve all your business needs.

Features Of Gift Cards For WooCommerce Pro

Share gift vouchers through Emails, WhatsApp, SMS, and downloadable PDFs for offline printing.
Create customizable gift cards that allow customers to upload their banner images and add custom messages.

• 20+ pre-designed Gift Card Templates for all occasions
• Create gift cards with four different pricing types: Default Pricing, Price Range, Selected Price, and User Price.
• Analyze gift card performance with WooCommerce Reports
• Include/Exclude Selected Categories Or Products
• Personalized gift card
• Schedule gift card delivery
• Automate gift card balance updates

Here is a brief overview of the gift cards plugin settings.

a) Gift Card General Settings

Click on the ‘Enable WooCommerce Gift Card’ check box to enable the plugin. Then enable all the other settings as per your requirements.

You can configure the following settings:

• Gift card Coupon Length
• Gift card Prefix
• Enable Tax
• Enable Listing Shop Page
• Individual Use
• Free Shipping
• Gift card Expiry After Days
• Minimum/Maximum Spend Limit
• Gift card Number of Time Usage
• Gift Card PDF Name Prefix
• Enable Date feature
• Date format
• Enable Payment Gateway For Giftcard
• Disable Category

To enable them, click on their respective checkboxes. And to disable them, uncheck the checkboxes.

b) Product Settings

This section has three major setting options on gift card applicability. You can select the following options under this setting to exclude the sales items, particular products, or product categories from the gift card discounts.

You can also decide to include the products and categories upon which the gift card will be applicable.

c) Email Templates

This section contains three types of customizable email templates:

1. Gift Card Email
2. Gift Card Acknowledgement Email
3. Left Coupon Amount Mail

You can customize the gift card email template that is used for delivering gift cards to the recipient, acknowledgment email, and gift card coupon usage email notification.

d) Delivery Method

Delivery method settings can be used to determine the method of delivering gift cards i.e. Email to the Recipient, Enable Downloadable, and Enable Shipping on Gift Card.

There are many more options available regarding email, template designs, deliverability options, coupon settings, import/export options, etc. To learn more, you can rely on the documentation.

Our plugin is a complete gift card solution. It has all the features needed to run a successful gift card program. In case you need to add a special feature, you can contact us.

Benefits of Gift Cards for eCommerce Business

Digital gift card benefits go beyond reaching your sales target. A well-running gift card program will strengthen your brand, acting as a product and marketing tool at the same time. When offered on the relevant festive days as points & rewards, it will loyalize your users.

a.) Brand Visibility

eCommerce gift card programs have captured the attention of major industry players and their audiences because they enhance brand visibility in the market sphere.

The customers purchase gift cards from their favorite stores and give them to their dear ones. The receiver may or may not be aware of your brand, but after availing of your gift card program services, they know about you and will also visit you to redeem their gift certificates.

b.) Customer Loyalty

For businesses, investing in gift cards business is a highly riskful plan because their customers have to trust them and be loyal to them for purchasing the gift cards. But it has also been seen that gift cards play an important role in enhancing customer behavior towards the brand and proving their loyalty too.

c.) Special Benefits to Customers

Gift cards are personalized and unique giftings for dear ones. And businesses promote gift card selling, considering the benefits it has. eCommerce gift cards are a source of additional benefits for the customers too, not limited to the business only.

Usually, people purchase gift cards to give to their special ones, but in rare cases, it is also seen that people do buy gift cards for themselves to purchase during a time of crisis or for leveraging additional discounts.

d.) Increase Repeat Business

The repeated business term refers to the concept of selling gift cards to make the customer return back to your store to redeem the gift card value. Purchasing or gifting gift cards to the customers bound them to return to your store to acquire the benefits of gift cards. Hence, they help you build customers that are regular and visit you repeatedly.

So, is your business ready to leverage the benefits of eCommerce gift cards?

Wrapping Up

Gift cards are a must-have for most businesses, especially those in the retail sector. Customers love buying, gifting, and re-selling their gift cards.

In this article, I’ve discussed the importance of selling gift cards, their seven key roles in retail business growth, and also shown you how to implement a gift card program on your WooCommerce Store.

If you want to learn more about WordPress, WooCommerce, and eCommerce, then please check out our other blogs.