Gift Cards

do any of you offer gift cards to your customers. i was thinking of printing up some plastic business card size gift cards in the amounts of $100,150,200,250,300. what do you guys think? any ideas?

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You mean with your logo on it to use like a credit card? Thats a pretty good idea. Really really cool. I just get gift cards from Vons, they got any gift card you can think of there, and you just activate it at the register. But I like your idea.

We offer gift certificates. Sell quite a few around Mothers Day. Gift cards is a great idea!!

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that would be cool too, but i was talking about selling gift cards to customers so they could give a friend window cleaning as a gift.

one option is the magnetic strip in the back, but i think you need some kind of a machine to activate them and change the balances on the card.
George, lets say someone has a gift card/certificate worth 200 and their house costs 150 to be cleaned. do you just change the amount on the certificate to 50 bucks by hand. also when you sell one do you write the amount its worth by hand, or offer different amounts pre printed in the certificate?

You can add the magnetic strip and just not use it; it makes it clear what it is, looks very cool, and theyā€™ll never know. Unlike a card at McDonalds or Best Buy these cards would probably all be used up in one transaction, or two at most. Iā€™ve thought about doing it, may try it next yearā€¦

Check out silk cards for printing:
tasteofinkstudios.com

Their plastic stock is so thick and strong itā€™s great

i like that idea, but what if someone did have a remaining balance on the card? i guess you could just give them another card with less money on it.

Chances are you wouldnā€™t sell [B]that[/B] many, right? Surely less than 50 or soā€¦ Iā€™d just either get them numbered and keep track of them by hand or in excel, or even skip the numbering and just start keeping track of the individual card balances by customer name after the first call and make it clear you need to take the card when the balance is used up.

also, the best part about gift certificates is that a portion never get used. make sure you put an expiration on them, something reasonable but an expiration nonethelessā€¦ 3 years from purchase perhaps. My familyā€™s company sells them for hot air balloon rides and 30% never get used

From time to time we offer HD gift cards to customers that have deck restoration service.

How many people would buy their friend a gift of window cleaning that costs $100-300?

You may sell one or two a year. Is it worth the effort?

I would send an email to my clients asking them what they thought. This will stop
you from wasting time and money if majority would not buy.

I do gift certificates,theyre cards tho, buy at office max, let people know you offer them too.

I printed up 4 gift certificates this christmas season. The people were thrilled because it was such an unusual gift for someone who has everything. This year, I am going to promote a gift certificate program via my website. The certificate will be really personalized with To: and From: + an added message like ā€œMerry Christmas From The Yoder Familyā€. All 4 certificates went over well and the people giving them out were excited! Their reaction got me thinking about this cool add on. I have decent traffic to the site from new customers as well as my old loyal ones (i have coupons on there). I am hoping visitors will see the certificates page throughout the year and make a mental note for birthdays, holidays and special celebrations.

Steve

Steve, this is not a Target gift card, this is an intrusive service (people go
into someones home). It has the baggage of safety, time constraints,
whether people want someone in their homeā€¦

You will not sell many if any to those who have not done business with you
yet. I would focus this on my current customersā€¦ including offering
them a discount or freebie of some kind if they buy one.

I am all for the ā€˜gift certificateā€™, but it is nothing like a retail gift card and
canā€™t be treated the same.

YES!! We offer gift certificates and they are quite popular around the Holiday season. Weā€™ve gotten quite a following with these gift certificates and itā€™s benefited us to have the extra income when our window cleaning season is coming to an end.

We offer gift certificates in paper form. They look nice and I can see how much is on them. EVERYONE has the plastic cards, so no one but yourself would be that impressed by you having them, and if you carry a credit card machine in all of your trucks then it works fine. We dont, and I donā€™t think anyone really does, so by having paper ones they are just as good.

A BIG FYI

I had a booth in our mall last holiday season because I thought man, this is a great gift idea ie. the hard to buy for person, person who has everything, grandparents etc. Well needless to say I ended up loosing $5,000+ in the venture. There is alot more involved in trying to sell them to people who have not built up trust in you.

thanks for all the info guys,
where did you get your gift certificates, did you just buy them somewhere or make your own?
does any one have one they could shareā€¦

Anybody??

Only a few years late but Vistaprint is one place

I just searched this because I had a customer call for one today :+1:

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This is an old thread but I think it should be discussed with the season starting again. I am super interested in seeing some examples. I would add this feature to my website if people are still having success with it.

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These gift cards are not to generate capital inatialy. My understanding of the benifet of doing the gift cards is bate the next sale or product. For example you have a data base of 100 people that have only used you one time in the last two years. Send them an email declairing that you have just won a $50 grift card for you or someone else that might need one of our services. All one hundred of the data base wins. I wonder out of the hundred people how many donā€™t even know they need your service because they are so busy, or until the win that gift card.

Thoughts

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Gift cards are great for getting people in the door. Itā€™s an awesome product to sell around holidays.

I like what you said. Thatā€™s a great idea to grab customers back or new ones even.

I plan on having them and it looks like Iā€™ll be doing it sooner than later. This customer called because their parents live approx. 1 hour from them, located near me and they want to surprise them with exteriors.

So thereā€™s 2 types that Iā€™ll offer.

  1. Paper Gift Certificate; Any denomination - for this customer, I quoted her the job and thatā€™s the amount of the card.

  2. Pre-set, plastic cards; Values of maybe 50, 100, 150 and 200. I havenā€™t put too much thought into the values YET. I may do 25, I may do more. Iā€™ll ponder on that.