How do I set up my business for gift card sales?

- [Jess] This is Jess Stratton with LinkedIn Learning. Your customers want to support you and help your business during this time. Selling gift cards is a great way to both help your business continue to get some income as well as empower your customers to know they're supporting you. It will also give you immediate revenue, as you get the money at the time of the sale. If your business has enough savings to pay the bills, you could potentially use gift card sales to gain immediate cash to help pay your employees. The first step is to decide what kind of gift cards you want to sell. If your shop is closed completely, you can sell eGift cards from your website. This is a similar process to purchasing anything online using eCommerce. You can put a link to buy them from your website, and your customers can either input a code to buy products online, or print out a barcode to shop at your store when you're open again. Here's another example of a website where you could find eGift cards as something to buy, maybe a category. The second option is to print out or buy paper cards. It will require curbside pickup, so your shop will have to have open hours. These can be easily incorporated into a point-of-sale system by adding them as a product. But you will have to keep track of the gift card number and value via spreadsheet or old fashioned paper. It's certainly not the most practical, but it is always an option. Finally, the most common method is a tangible plastic card that you can swipe with a magnetic strip or scan a barcode. While it's a bigger initial investment, you may get an even greater return by attracting new customers this way. Your existing customers, looking to help you boost business, can purchase your gift cards as thank yous for service people and healthcare workers. And these people may be hearing about you for the first time. This method also requires an open shop to pick up. But you can also sell these online, just like any other product. Once you've decided how you want to sell the cards, step two is implementing the decision. Always start with your existing system first, to see what they offer, as you'll be able to integrate it seamlessly into your point-of-sale system. Many existing eCommerce solutions already offer eGift cards, so if you have an online shop, start there first. Even QuickBooks Point of Sale offers gift cards within the app as an add-on service. If you don't have anything existing, you could get started with PayPal Merchant Services to put a link on your website. You can also use a specialized eGift service, like GiftFly. I, however, recommend signing up with Square, as it's inexpensive, and you can choose eGift cards and physical plastic cards. Whatever company you choose, you can expect to pay about 80 cents to two dollars per card, depending on the service. ShopKeep and Lightspeed are other point-of-sale systems that offer branded logo gift cards. Finally, another great reason to sell gift cards is that once the crisis is over, it gives them a reason and a reminder to return to your store. And they can easily purchase a lot more than just the value on the card.