A gift card bought by the customer at the location and then used by the customer in the store for subsequent transactions. It’s a cash-generating product that doubles as a miniature “billboard” in your customer’s wallet. As the card is used the card balance declines, which encourages repeat visits and limits cash refunds.

Loyalty & Membership Programs
As a merchant your goal is to acquire customers and retain them. By utilizing the gift card program, it is easier to keep track of card balances and transaction activity; this will result in rewards and incentive programs.

Merchandise Credits
The exact value of a product return for store credit can be loaded on to the card. This eliminates having to issue out cash refunds on products that are returned to the store.

Advertising & Promotion
The marketing applications of stored-value cards are as wide open as the imagination—from electronic coupons to co-branded cards paid for by one or more merchant suppliers.

How Store Valued Gift Cards Work

Sales
A customer purchases a Gift Card with cash, check or credit card for any dollar amount desired. Merchants use in-store displays to merchandise Gift Cards much like they would any small impulse-buy product—by the register with counter signs and colorful card hangers. The amount purchased is recorded as “stored value” or “prepaid” in the host database.

Redemptions
The Cardholder presents the gift card for full or partial payment of a purchase. The merchant swipes the card through their POS terminal for authorization and transmission of transaction data on the host platform. The card’s magnetic stripe identifies the card number and merchant location for which the card has been issued.

Cardholder Incentives
The cardholder can purchase additional value or “reload” the card for any amount—by phone or by coming into the location. Merchants can offer an incentive to customers to encourage card reloading. For example: increase the customer’s stored-value amount by 20% (i.e. a $50 reload is recorded as $60 in stored value for the cardholder).

Data Processing
The stored value card system operates in real time as a closed loop debit network. Transactions, such as card activation, sales, voids and balance inquiries from the point of sale, are transmitted to the Data Center. The transaction request is fulfilled or authorized, data is captured in the merchant / client database and an approval or requested information is transmitted via the POS terminal. The POS printer produces a paper receipt of each transaction—including the card balance—for the merchant and the customer.

Main benefits of our Gift Card Program include:

Our Gift card provides a customized marketing tool for the merchant, complete with customized logo, creating a "billboard in the wallet"

• Attracts and retains new customers by building brand awareness and creating customer loyalty
• Reloadable features keep customers loyal as merchant becomes destination versus an impulse
• Switching from paper to plastic results in increased consumer participation and increased sales and average ticket size
• Unused balance remains on gift card, which keeps customer coming back
• Cash flow is enhanced/increased by collecting payment prior to delivery product and services
• Extensive management reporting provides monitoring and security controls

Other program highlights include:

• Increased Impulse Buying
• Enhanced Cash flow
• Customer Loyalty
• Easy to Use
• Customized Surveys
• Customized Statements
• Consumer Buying Patterns
• Customer Tracking
• Enhances Merchandising
• Replaces Paper Certificates
• Increased Sales
• Improved Record Keeping
• Freedom to Choose

There are many uses and benefits with our Gift Card System, thereby allowing for increased flexibility.

Some applications include:

• Gift Certificates
• Reward Programs
• Discount Cards
• Pre-paid Programs
• Preferred Customer Programs
• Employee Incentive Programs

To ensure customer satisfaction we have included many features into our Gift Card program at no extra cost to you.

Some of these features include:

• Full Color Customized Cards
• Management Reports
• On-Line Processing
• Fraud Control
• Verifone Readers And Printers
• Web Reporting
• Barcode Readers
• Remanco POS
  

Gift Card and Loyalty Programs

Nilson Report
Gift card systems are the fastest growing consumer payment system in the U.S. over the last three years... Retailers have much to gain from the migration from paper certificates to plastic cards...gift cards will dominate the prepaid payment system market for years to come.

Retail Card Forum
American Express estimates retail gift card outstanding balances alone are currently $1 billion, and project they will grow to $15 billion in the next 2 years. Shoppers using prepaid gift cards and certificates are less concerned about paying full price in retail stores than shoppers using other media, according to research by Daniel R. Horne, assistant professor of marketing at Providence College, RI. Horne's survey of gift card and certificate users found that 40% of shoppers using a retailer's gift card or certificates purchased items at full price, compared to 16% of shoppers using other payment methods.

Los Angeles Times
Macy’s, Gap, Bloomingdale's and others are promoting prepaid gift cards that take the place of paper gift certificates, hoping to boost sales. The cards have an important advantage for retailers over paper gift certificates. Consumers using gift certificates receive their change in cash, which can be spent elsewhere. The electronic gift cards keep the money from leaving the store.

Dan Horne, retailing professor at Providence College in Rhode Island, said sales of gift cards and certificates have been growing 11% to 15% annually since 1993, thanks in part to gift cards. Americans will spend billions on them, he said. The cards appeal to time-pinched consumers in search of a convenient gift, Horne said. Also, corporations purchase batches of the cards to give to customers. Retailers view the cards, which usually have the store logo on them and easily slip into a consumers' wallet, as a form of branding.

"A reusable gift card can be a constant reminder of a store and its brands," said Joe Enos, a spokesman for Old Navy. Neiman Marcus is credited with creating the electronic gift card in 1994. The retailer known for its expensive, not to say extravagant, merchandise has actually sold cards with values in the $100,000 range, said Billy Payton, vice president of marketing at the Dallas-based chain. "We launched the prepaid gift card because we believe it can be fun to buy, fun to give and fun to use," Payton said.

The Associated Press
Retailers have high hopes for the future of electronic gift cards. Finding that perfect gift for someone at Christmas or any other time is never easy, but a growing number of retailer's think they have the solution...It's plastic. Stores are converting gift certificates from documents to electronic cards. They're less cumbersome to carry, have a technological edge that appeals to kids and are advantageous for retailers.

Card Marketing
Neiman-Marcus and Barneys New York are wrapping up higher gift sales after replacing paper gift certificates with magnetic stripe, prepaid cards in all stores. Customer response has been so strong; the upscale stores are now jockeying to develop the most colorful and unique cards for every occasion, before mainstream department stores jump on the bandwagon. Although the trend began at two of the nation's most upscale stores, retailers from Bloomingdale's to Target are expected to begin offering prepaid gift cards in the near future, say industry experts, because of the convenience and cost savings the cards offer.

MasterCard International
The average consumer today carries with them 12-14 pieces of plastics.

National Retail Federation
U.S. annual retail establishments registered sales of more than $2.5 trillion in 1997 and $2.7 trillion in 1998.