7 Cool Things About SelbySoft’s Gift Card System
There are a lot of POS systems out there. Making a decision on which one to buy can be very tough. Especially when it seems, at first glance, that most POS systems have a lot of the same features.
That’s why it’s important to dig deep. Make sure that you evaluate how well the features works and not just that the sales guy says it’s there.
With that being said . . . Here are some very cool things about the Gift Card system in SelbySoft:
1) IT’S FREE. . . Of course that is number one on the list. Paying a monthly fee and a swipe charge just isn’t cost effective for stores that that deal in small ticket items. If you have to pay $10-$40 a month and $.10 to $.25 a swipe then the gift card system because a liability. On top of that most gift cards will run somewhere between $.50 and a $1.20 a card. With our gift card system, you have no fees and the cards are cost effective – think lower end of that scale.
2) IT’S INDEPENDENT OF THE CREDIT CARD COMPANY. . .Think about that for a minute and you will start seeing why that can be a good idea. Besides the costs mentioned above, a gift card that is operated through a credit card company will virtually guarantee that swapping from one credit card company to another is as difficult as possible.
3) IT’S MULTI-TASKING. . . Gift card, prepaid card, customer profile card, discount card and rewards (punch) card all in one.
4) IT’S PROMOTABLE. . . With our integrated discount system, it’s incredibly easy to sell a $25 card for $20 and track it. Better yet, you can track how well those promotions are working and duplicate success.
5) IT’S VERSATILE. . . This is where the differences really start to come out. No putting the ticket on hold, no consolidating later on.
- Need to buy a drink and a gift card at the same time? All in one transaction, on one ticket with one cash out.
- Need to split a gift card into other cards? Easy.
- Need to buy a drink and recharge your card at the same time? Just as simple.
6) IT’S MULTI-STORE CAPABLE. . . Have two or more locations? We can handle it. SelbySoft has a fully featured Corporate Reporting package that will handle the gift cards between multiple locations. If you are franchising or licensing and need corporate gift card pooling, let us know – we even have options to cover that!
7) DID I MENTION IT’S FREE?. . . Yep – free.
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371
Posted in Gift Cards, Uncategorized Tagged with: gift cards, order entry
7 Crazy Gift Card Promotions
Gift cards are a big part of the Coffee and Restaurant industry. The marketing and promotional ideas are virtually endless
So, I thought it would be fun to share 7 or so different, and sometimes unusual, gift card promotions with you:
1) Buy a card, get a drink (or appetizer etc). This is a fun promotion that helps provide instantaneous gratification. The idea is that when a customer buys a gift card of sufficient value, they get something free. Usually 10% is the standard discount to consider. So, buy a $35 gift card and get a free coffee! Buy a $50 gift card and get a free order of bread sticks. It can be a great way to introduce a new product at the same time you increase gift card sales.
2) On a similar track. . . Buy a card and get a $5 card (or $5 off the gift card). This is a pretty popular promotion and works very well if you find customers are buying primarily as a gift card. Think about it. . . It puts a gift card in two peoples hands!
3) Accept a competitors card as a trade in. This works specifically with Starbucks. The thought is that you will take certain types of Starbucks gift cards and issue one of your own with equal value. It sounds a little crazy but what can make it work is that there are multiple sites that will pay you a percent of the total value for that Starbucks card. Plastic Jungle is a site that allows you to do this with cards that are over $25. When I checked, they were offering $41 for a $50 Starbucks card. EDIT: I was informed by a reader that Plastic Jungle has shut down. Luke Knowles suggested the following (Thanks Luke!).
Gift Card Granny – shows a comparison of what other sites will give you for a gift card.
Gift Card Zen – a gift exchange site.
4) Sell big! Everyone should have at least one huge value gift card offer. $200 gets you $220 or some variation. Jack Groot of the Midwest Barista School tells a wonderful story on LinkedIn about selling $1,200 gift cards for $1,000 each to finance a piece of equipment.
5) Use gift cards instead of employee discounts. Instead of a 50% discount, pre-load a gift card for each employee every pay period. The employee can then use this for any purchase in the store. Let them buy their girl/boy friend a drink, purchase a muffin for their Mom etc. Instead of tempting them with using their discount.
6) Hand them out! Pre-load a number of gift cards with a small amount and pass them around. Use them as business cards and start promoting your brand.
7) Promote through non-profits and community events. Selling a gift card at a discounted price to schools and church’s allows you to promote your store, help the community and have your customers introduce new people to your product and brand.
Have an 8th? Comment and let us know!
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371
Posted in Gift Cards, Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged with: gift cards, promotions
Gift cards and Cash Drawers
Does your cash drawer open when you use a gift card? It doesn’t have to!
Under the Cash Drawer options in System Setup | Cash Drawer, you can select to have the drawer stay closed when a gift or credit card is used.
This allows you to limit employee access to the physical cash drawer.
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371
Posted in Gift Cards, Hardware, Uncategorized Tagged with: cash drawers, gift cards
Interested in Gift Cards?
Interested in ordering gift cards? Don’t forget to think about custom gift cards. Too many people go with a generic card that does not remind the customer of your unique business. Having your logo on the card increases the likely hood that they will remember you.
What if you don’t have artwork for the logo etc? There are other ways to target your customers with the gift card design without having to spend a ton of money on graphic design.
One common method is to put a high quality picture of your primary coffee or food on the front. Nothing reminds us better than an image of the product we love. There are even plenty of websites that offer royalty free pictures for anything from $2.00 to $50.00 for the pictures. These are usually really high quality digital photos.
Other customers have simply taken a high quality picture of the location itself and used that for the front of the card. This is a great way to promote your cards as your customers recognize the building and the signage.
The back of the card is a great opportunity to market and promote as well. Don’t be afraid to wrap the color that you use on the card around to the back of the card as well. When a customer looks in their wallet, we want them to associate the color on the back of that card with your location.
Don’t hesitate to look at www.facebook.com/selbysoftinc for some examples of custom gift cards!
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371
Posted in Gift Cards, Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged with: gift cards, marketing
Pre-Load Gift Cards
Most stores receive at least a couple fund raising requests a year. You may offer a discount, cash, free food etc on occasion to help out your local charity or non-profit organization. Using a gift card may be a better way to go however.
Because you can pre-load gift cards with a dollar amount, you can easily setup a fund raising card system when asked. The scenario would play out like this. . . You offer to sell the organization gift cards at a discounted amount. So, maybe $20 cards for $15. They then sell the cards for the face value of $20. They make $5 on each card and you make a potential new customer and goodwill in the community.
Another great example of using gift cards as a marketing tool is to keep some pre-loaded cards on you as a business card. A $1.00 pre-loaded gift card works great for friends and associates. It’s an easy way to introduce people to what you have to offer.
Posted in Gift Cards, Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged with: gift cards, marketing
Gift Card Reminders
http://selbysoft.blogspot.com/2010/09/holiday-customer-rewards.html
http://selbysoft.blogspot.com/2010/01/pre-load-gift-cards.html
http://selbysoft.blogspot.com/2009/10/gift-card-promotion-and-marketing.html
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371
Posted in Gift Cards, Marketing, Order Entry, Uncategorized Tagged with: gift cards, reporting
Gift Card Customer Reporting
We all know that gift cards are a great way of increasing revenue and customer retention. One of the questions that comes up is how to track what happened with a gift card. Usually this comes up because a customer thinks they should have more money on their card than they actually do.
SelbySoft has a great report that will show you a complete history of the gift card when you are using our free internal gift card system.
In Reports | Customer | Internal Gift Card System you will find an option that provides a couple different types of information.
For example, to see all the transaction history for a specific card, you would simply select the Individual button and then enter the gift card number and dates to see. The example below shows what type of information is being displayed – notice that all voids, loads, sales etc are shown along with the date and the employee that performed the transaction!
This is a great way to check if someone has used a card incorrectly and to help verify transactions.
Another report that can be run here is the list of outstanding cards. With this report you will see a total list of all gift cards that have not had any use since a certain date. This is a great liability report!
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371
Posted in Gift Cards, Marketing, Order Entry, Reporting, Uncategorized Tagged with: customers, gift cards, reporting
Holiday Customer Rewards
Let’s not forget the people that have started to drift away from your store. These are the so-called “lazy” customers. Target the ones that have not ordered in 30,60 or 90 days.
Changing your holiday hours? Staying open later on weekends etc? Great! Let’s tell people about it. . . Target your customers by time frame and send your early morning customers a coupon for coming in later.
Too busy in the dining area? Let’s use that same report to target people that use their cards in the dining room. Target them with a carry out or delivery special, or just let them know they can pre-order!
Finally, try some blanket emails to target your whole customer base with holiday promotions. This can be targeted in a number of ways and can be tied in with free marketing on Facebook and Twitter.
Last but not least – run the historical reports to see how well certain specials did last year
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371
Posted in Gift Cards, Uncategorized Tagged with: gift cards, holiday
Get ready for the holidays!
The holidays are coming! I know it might seem early to think about Thanksgiving, Christmas and the new year when it is not even Halloween yet but relatively speaking they are fast approaching!
So what does that have to do with anything? When you are thinking about your POS system, quite a bit. This is the best time to start really looking at what happened last year around these holidays. A lot of store owners that have not made a switch to POS base their expectations on memory – not always the greatest idea.
Now is the time to start evaluating your menu to prep for the labor and menu changes that will be coming up. Looking at the data SP-1 can give you will help you make educated and sound decisions to prepare for the coming holidays.
Start by using your Business Summary report to evaluate what menu items worked last year for the same time frame. We suggest the you pay close attention to the menu group and the specialty portion of the Business Summary. Look at how well your past menu items, and especially your holiday specific items, did last year and adjust accordingly. This will help you in labor planning, marketing of items and portion control.
Afterall, one of the reasons that you bought a pos was to help keep track of your sales right?
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371
Posted in Gift Cards, POS Features, Uncategorized Tagged with: gift cards, holidays
Gift Card Promotion and Marketing
A little different topic this time on the blog. Recently we have seen a big upswing in people that are asking about how to use SP-1 to help drive more business through the store. Part of this is through the strong gift card program and with the holidays around the corner it’s time to start thinking about this.
Are you using gift cards? If not, you are missing out on one of the best ways to increase sales and cash flow. Also, if you are using them, let’s make sure it’s not by just plopping them on the counter and expecting them to sell themselves!
First let’s define what we are talking about. . . A plastic card (with no swipe fees or monthly fees when used with SP-1) that can be used in different ways:
1) Traditional gift – I buy it and give it away.
2) Prepaid – I buy and continue to keep it charged for my own use.
3) Rewards – The same card can be used to keep a buy 10 get 1 free or other promotion.
4) Customer Discount card – When the card is used a discount is automatically applied.
This is ALL the same card. So first, this card is a great marketing opportunity for you – it’s a “billboard” in the customers pocket.
So what can be done with these to help you make more money? Let’s skip the usual arguments (although they are valid) about how people spend more with a gift card than cash and what percent of cards are lost. We know that the gift cards are a good idea – the question is how to move them.
Here are some ideas that we have had over the years to move gift cards and boost sales.
1) Instant gratification: “Hi, would you like that drink free?” or “Would you like to have that sandwich / pizza 1/2 off?”; “would you like some free breadsticks with that order?”. Once the customer answers yes – tell them they only need to buy a $25 gift card for that. The little chain store that cuts my hair has a deal that if I buy a $50 gift card I get a free haircut – I do it every couple months.
2) This one is a little obvious but I’ll mention it anyway: Buy a $25 gift card and pay only $20!
3) Friend cards: Give your employees or even customers small dollar amount gift cards to use as a promotion. They could be $1 -$3 each. Tell them this is to hand out to their Friends.
4) Discount or VIP Cards: Purchase a large enough gift card and receive a discount for the rest
of the year. This discount could be worked many ways – only on certain days, certain items, certain order types etc. If someone buys a $100 / $250 / $500 gift card is it worth a 10% / 20% discount?
5) Traditional rewards system: Buy 10 get 1 free.
6) Non-Traditional rewards: Every dollar you spend you get a point. Once you accumulate enough points, you get free or discounted product. I.E. at 50 points you get 25% off next order or a free appetizer / pastry.
So there you are – a half dozen ways to start off the marketing kick on gift and loyalty cards. There are more! If you have a great idea on this – let me know and I’ll spread the word.
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371
Posted in Gift Cards, Reporting, Uncategorized Tagged with: gift cards, marketing, reporting