Gift card sales can provide a significant boost to your cash flow, especially during the holidays. And the great thing is this - unlike food and beverage sales, where 25%-40% of the collections have already been spent on product cost, gift cards are paid for well in advance, which means 100% of the cash is yours to use until the card is redeemed.

We conducted a member survey so that we could share some of the gift card strategies used by our members and the successes they have enjoyed. The results provide our membership with valuable insight they can use to plan their own gift card/certificate campaign.

For instance, an industry accepted standard shows that roughly 18% of all gift cards or certificates goes unredeemed, meaning the value of the average gift certificate sold is worth more than 120% of the sales price. This industry standard is validated by our respondents, who reported an average of 21% of all gift cards sold went unredeemed. The median figure for unredeemed cards was 16%.

Many of the respondents reported successful promotions using both paper gift certificates and electronic gift cards. Roughly 53% of respondents use gift cards while 47% issued printed gift certificates. Of the 53% using gift cards, 74% used their POS system to read and process the transaction. 17% of all respondents used a 3rd party gift card service for tracking and processing their gift cards or certificates.

Additional revenue through gift card/certificate sales ranged from a low of several hundred dollars to a whopping $100,000 in gift card sales. The average gross gift card revenue was over $14,000 per respondent while the median amount of additional revenue reported was $5,000.

Voices of Experience

Our members had much to say about their experience with gift card promotions, redemptions, and the types of products they used to make it happen. See what they had to say in response to the following survey questions:

Q: Some operators offer special discounts such as a $25 gift certificate for $20. Do you offer such discounts? If so, what kind of discount offer seems to work best for you?

Slightly more than half of all respondents stated that they did not currently offer discounts, although some were considering it. However, 44% said that they did offer discounts as a means of promoting sales. Click on the "View Responses" button to view what types of discounts were offered.

Q: Do you use any special promotions to increase sales of gift certificates during the holidays?

Many respondents reported that special promotions helped them to increase their gift card sales during the holidays. Click on the icon below to see the many ways our members promoted gift card sales.

Q: What's the most successful gift certificate promotion you've every done?

Responses to this question revealed some very unique ideas for promoting gift card sales and establishing b2b relationships.

Q: If you sell gift 'cards', what company do you use to process your gift card transactions? On a 1 to 10 scale (10 best) how satisfied are you with your gift card processor?

See what members had to say about the service companies they used to process their cards, and what they thought about the service.