Offering Gift Certificates for the holidays?

K

KenAllwine

New member
Now that my business is up and running, I wanted to offer gift certificates since the holidays are right around the corner. Can anyone tell me know they do this effectively? Are you just printing up a self made certificate or buying the nice heavy stock ones with envelopes?
 
These are the ones I use:



Adams® Gift Certificates, 25/Pack | Staples®



I push them around the holidays, even offer a 10% discount off the value of the certificate, but not alot of people buy them. I think one reason is people think if they got someone a gift cert for detailing, the recipient may be like "what are you saying, I drive a dirty car?". I actually had a customer that received one come in to redeem it and that's what she told me, she was actually a little offended that someone got her one. But yes, her car was filthy!
 
KenAllwine said:
Now that my business is up and running, I wanted to offer gift certificates since the holidays are right around the corner. Can anyone tell me know they do this effectively? Are you just printing up a self made certificate or buying the nice heavy stock ones with envelopes?
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I had wayyyyyyy too many custom made certificates made up over 10 years ago and we're still getting rid of them. I'm working on having new ones made and possibly moving to swipe gift cards that can be used with our POS terminal. I also do videos that we promote through our youtube channel/facebook and website. It grows every year! I just posted our newest video in another post
 
ShineShop said:
I had wayyyyyyy too many custom made certificates made up over 10 years ago and we're still getting rid of them. I'm working on having new ones made and possibly moving to swipe gift cards that can be used with our POS terminal. I also do videos that we promote through our youtube channel/facebook and website. It grows every year! I just posted our newest video in another post
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Swipe cards are extremely professional and def separate you from the masses. Can't wait till I get to the point of being able to offer them.
 
ExplicitDetails said:
Swipe cards are extremely professional and def separate you from the masses. Can't wait till I get to the point of being able to offer them.
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It also pretty much eliminates the chances of fraud and employee theft as well. We get a bunch of requests to purchase over the phone/internet every year too so I'll be offering these online at some point as well.
 
With low volume I have found it to be more effective to simply go with a 3rd party payer. In most cases it is a current customer who wants to get a friend/family members car detailed. I simply operate as I do with any other car, but communicate with the gift-giver rather than the receiver. If you do go with certificates, make sure they are numbered and cannot be duplicated. When I did it I made sure I personally signed each one in red ink so that any duplication would be obvious. I also tracked whom each one was sold to in the event I had a duplicate show up.
 
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