What to know about restaurant gift card offerings

April 16, 2020 3

If you’re looking for a way to increase your restaurant profits and keeping your customers happy, consider gift card offerings. They can make up for a great source of revenue even during difficult times. This is especially true when the entire restaurant community is experiencing a continuous decline in sales.

How do gift cards help restaurants?

Gift cards are the best way to encourage your customers to visit your restaurant regularly. Since they have a chance to redeem their cards every visit, they will prefer your restaurant over others. However, increasing customer loyalty is not the only benefit that gift cards offer to restaurants.

Immediate sales

Gift cards can convert to instant cash for restaurants. You make money as soon as you sell them.

You earn money in advance

Gift cards are not like any other discount coupons since they were purchased at an earlier date.

“Free money”

While many customers redeem their gift cards at your restaurant, there are quite a few who opt not to redeem them. In such cases, you stand at an advantage since these gift cards have already been paid for.

More revenue

Gift cards are a very convenient way to purchase. As a result, consumers may not think twice before spending at your restaurant. Upselling becomes a lot easier and effortless.

Gift cards as a branding tool

Apart from sources of generating revenue, gift cards can also double up as branding tools to help promote your restaurant. Most customers would love to give your gift cards as gifts to their loved ones, thereby increasing your customer base.

Why offer online purchases of gift cards?

Gift card selling becomes much easier and more effective if you offer an online purchasing option. Your customers will be able to buy them from the comfort of their homes. They can also send these gift cards to their loved ones as gifts. Online selling helps you sell more gift cards to more customers simultaneously.

Offering gift cards online can work out very beneficial for your restaurant staff. They can focus on providing better customer service without wasting their time of fitting out gift cards to customers.

Digital gift cards help you save a lot of time and money. You don’t have to worry about getting them printed and shipping them to your customers. Your customers will thank you for not expecting them to carry your gift card in their wallet every time they visit your restaurant.

Gift cards and point-of-sale

The best part of offering gift cards is that they can be easily integrated with your POS system. If you haven’t installed one yet, it pays to understand why you need to do so.

A POS solution helps you automate all the day-to-day processes of your restaurant, maximizing your efficiency, and minimizing your costs. If you already have a website for your restaurant, you can find a POS system with website integration that will make it easier for you to sell your gift cards online.

By integrating your gift card selling to your POS, you will also be able to track the metrics of your gift card sales. This makes it easier to analyze the spending habits of your customers so that you can suggest them the right type of gift card to buy.

Encouraging gift card sales

Gift card selling should not be too difficult if you use the right tools and tactics to encourage their sales. Apart from your restaurant and your marketing material, you can also promote your gift cards through your website and social media channels. Here are a few things for you to try:

Offers

Offering discounts is a great way to sell. This rule applies to gift cards too. Even small discounts can help you sell a lot of gift cards. Ten percent off gift cards or buy-two-get-one-free deals are some promotions that work well.

Website promotions

Your website is the best place to promote your gift cards since that is where your customers can buy them. Use your Calls-to-Actions to direct your customers towards purchasing gift cards. Make it easier for them to buy the gift cards.

Social media

You should be able to reach out to a more extensive customer base by promoting your gift cards on your social media channels. Incentivize your customers to post their pictures with your gift cards and encourage many more to buy.

Boosting your technology game

Yes, offering gift cards is one of the best ways to increase your sales and enhance your customer loyalty. However, you should also be able to manage them efficiently if you want to derive maximum value out of them. The best way to do this is to integrate it with your POS system. Talk to a professional to integrate your POS system with your website.