Gift and Loyalty Rewards

You’ve seen them hanging by the cash registers at all the major retailers. They are those electronic gift cards and loyalty cards. Studies show that approximately 65% of Americans purchased or received a gift card in 2008 indicating that gift cards have practically replaced paper certificates. The largest retailers and chain restaurants have been heavily promoting them for years and for 80% of the top 100 US retailers, the #1 biggest seller is their gift card.

One of the easiest ways to increase sales for your business is to add a Gift Card program to your payment processing. Gift Cards can be an easy way to generate new customers, and increase business sales. If you’re a small to medium sized retailer or restaurant and have not yet implemented a gift card program, IT’S TIME!

If you’re considering a gift card program for your business, it’s essential that your program includes the technology and support necessary to ensure success. We provide gift card programs to merchants ranging from small businesses to national and multi-national organizations. As a PREFERRED Merchants client you’ll have access to all our resources and experience, ensuring your program the advantages you need. In most cases, our gift card program will work on the same payment processing system your business is already using. PREFERRED Merchants handles all the setup and will provide training and ongoing support for you, and your business.

With a PREFERRED Merchants gift card program, your business will get a custom designed gift card program. All cards are totally custom and printed in full-color. As a client, you’ll be provided access to the largest selection of gift card promotional materials on the web, including table tents, posters, stickers, display cases, card presenters and more! You’ll have access to everything needed to continue marketing your program.

In addition to your monthly statements, you’ll also be able to track all your money, all the time. You’ll be able to receive detailed reports daily, weekly, or monthly with details on exactly how much money is on your gift cards.

The PREFERRED Merchants Gift & Loyalty program has 2 program options available for your business.

• OPTION 1: The PREFERRED Gift & Loyalty Program Click for Details
• OPTION 2: The Traditional Gift & Loyalty Program Click for Details

Gift & Loyalty card programs have a number of benefits for you and your customers….

Merchant Benefits:

• Enhances sales and revenue. By offering customers more options and incentives to remain loyal to your business, sales will automatically increase.
• Encourage, build, and maintain customer loyalty. To redeem the card value, customers will revisit your store and, quite possibly, purchase more.
• Avoid theft and fraud damages. Gift cards require activation to be used and contain other security features to help minimize the risk of theft and fraud.
• Paper vs. Plastic – Experience has shown that plastic gift card sales increase an average of 35% over current paper certificate programs. Also, customers spend more with plastic with average sales about 40% more than paper.
• Will enhance your business’ professional image. Puts you on a level playing field with the major chains that already have this type of program in place.
• Carrying a plastic card with your logo in their wallet is like having a mini billboard in your customers’ hands every day.
• Increases profitability – No cash back. Returns and refunds are done with gift cards.
• Have been shown to reduce shoplifting when a policy to put refunds without a receipt on a gift/stored value card. Discourages stealing and then asking the cashier for cash back. Many national chains have developed this as store policy.
• You can view and print real-time activity reports from your PC, will receive monthly reports via email, plus you will get daily reports from your terminal.
• Ease of issuance and redemption – employees just need to swipe the card through the terminal to load or redeem value on the card, which only takes seconds.
• Having a successful loyalty program in place means more visits by your current customer base that may mean that you can reduce advertising costs to attract new customers since tables are already filled. Also, if you are using coupons such as buy 1 get 1 free then you are giving up much more in profits then if you were to reward loyal customers with a free appetizer after spending $100.00 in previous visits. As you know, Client Retention is one of the most important aspects of your business and of course it is much more expensive to find new customers then to keep your existing ones coming back again and again.

Customer Benefits:

• Save your customers valuable time. With this easy gift solution, customers know the recipient will get something they like.
• Let customers give the gift of convenience. Gift cards offer flexibility because they can be used at any time, at any participating location, and toward any store purchase.
• Give customers the control. Customers can easily control spending with a pre-paid, “stored value” cards.

General Gift Card Information:

• Gift cards hold, or “store” a pre-paid value that can be used for purchases.
• Gift cards can be customized to fit the branding and image of the merchant.
• Magnetic stripe gift cards are processed as secure, electronic payments through most existing Point of Sale systems and credit card terminals.
• Merchants can select from various program options to better suit their objectives.
• Gift cards can hold value until the balances are redeemed or have expired, or they can be “re-loadable.”
• As further incentive to customer loyalty, predetermined rewards can be given back to customers.

Program Highlights

• Software supports both gift and loyalty card programs
• Transactions are live and online with dollar amounts and point balances available from your terminal in real-time
• 24/7 merchant support is available via a toll free number or via email
• Online access makes reports available to you in real-time
• Additional monthly processing reports are emailed to you monthly
• No need to change your current credit card processor
• Gift cards can be loaded for any dollar amount the customer chooses
• Choice of completely custom designed cards with your colors and logo or choose from a selection of standard card designs where your company name is printed and you can even add your logo

Loyalty and Rewards Concepts

With a properly run Loyalty & Rewards program, you’ll keep your most valuable asset producing profits for your business.

It’s truly amazing how many businesses continue to ignore their existing loyal customers while they market to develop new ones. Studies show that it costs eight times (8x) as much to develop a new customer as it does to maintain an existing customer, so developing programs that create loyalty in existing customers is essential to the bottom line profit of your business.

The flexibility of our programs will allow virtually anything you can dream up. As food for thought, consider some of the following offerings and how they might promote more repetitive business from your existing customers.

Deciding Point Value
The first step towards creating a Loyalty Program is deciding what point value to assign to customer purchases. The most popular options are $1 = 1 point or $1 = 10 points.

Deciding Awards Levels & Redemptions
The next step is to decide what reward(s) to give your customers when a specific point level is reached. Rewards can be products, services, discounts, or dollar value added to the card.

Take for example the popular loyalty rewards program that one of the major restaurant chains uses whereby it offers 10 points for each dollar spent plus 500 points at initial signup. As loyal customers accumulate points they are rewarded for reaching specific levels such as a free appetizer or dessert, free entrée, or dollar valued certificates for higher levels.

In a program such as this the business will print their own brochure, flyer, or store poster which spells out what is offered at different levels. Think about your individual situation. Let’s say you are a video store. How about each rental equals 1 point and after 5 rentals the customer can redeem their points for a free rental or if they want to accumulate points then at 12 points they can redeem for a free rental plus a free microwave popcorn.

Our programs are popular because we don’t determine the reward levels, it’s totally up to you. Points are simply added to the card or redeemed in any amount you choose. This allows rewards and reward levels to be continuously flexible without making any award level or point value changes in the system. An example of the flexibility: Let’s say you have a restaurant and Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually slow. Then how about everyone gets double points on Tuesdays and on Wednesdays it only takes 50 points to get a free dessert with dinner. This is a great way to fill more seats and create loyalty.

Auto Rewards Program
The easiest loyalty program is also one of the most effective. Your business will chose one point level that will trigger an automatic dollar-value reward added to the customer’s card. For example, the program may be set up so that:

$1 = 1 point, 50 points = $5 reward.
When 50 points are accrued, the system automatically redeems the points and adds $5 of cash value to the card.

With Auto Rewards, your customers are continuously motivated to return because they have dollars or points (or both) on their cards at all times. With the “add value” function disabled for this program, clerks are prevented from accidentally adding dollars to the card instead of points.

With your own custom loyalty program you can reward customers based on:

• Dollars spent
• Number of visits
• Birthdays and other demographic information
• Lifetime purchase history
• Sales during specific time periods
• Create unlimited reward levels to keep customers interested.

With your own custom plan you can also choose your rewards:

• Discounts
• Merchandise
• Cash-back
• Rebates
• Or anything else you can think of!

Our system is extremely flexible, and chances are, if you can dream it up, we can make it happen. If you are interested in loyalty, and don't quite know what you want or where to start, call or email us and we will help you design your perfect program.

We offer a large selection of promotional materials for your gift cards. Table tents, posters, stickers, display cases, card presenters and more! For the largest selection of gift card promotional materials on the web, visit

For more information or to get started, call us today and see why the PREFERRED Way is the only way you should do business.

“All merchant accounts are referred to and processing services provided by registered ISO/MSP of HSBC Bank USA, National Association Buffalo, N.Y, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Walnut Creek, CA, Harris N.A., Chicago, IL.”

Gift and Loyalty Facts

The use of gift certificates and customer rewards or loyalty programs is not a new concept. Businesses have long used these tools as methods for improving customer behaviors to the benefit of the business.

Recently, the introduction of newer technology and plastic gift & loyalty cards has taken these time old programs and created a whole new level of tools for businesses to use in connection with their customer oriented programs.

The facts contained below are just some of what these new technologies can offer your business when properly implemented.

For more information on how you can use these programs to drive sales in your business, contact us today.

Gift Card Facts

• 83% of Americans use gift cards.
• 61% of gift card users spent more than their original card value when they returned to the store.
• On average card users spent $18.37 in excess of the card value when redeeming their gift card. Based on the average card value of $34.26, that’s an average sales increase 54%
• Businesses can count on an average of 3 visits to the store, as a result of a single gift card sale.
• Gift cards outsell paper gift certificates 4 to 1.
• Consumers are 10x more likely to buy a card over a paper coupon.
• 54% of gift card users make more than one trip to the retailer to use up the card's value.
• 69% of customers state that they want to choose their card values.
• 56% prefer re-loadable cards.
• 78% decided to buy cards before going to the store.
• 40% of customers using gift cards paid full retail prices on the items they purchased, versus only 16% who purchased using other payment options.
• Birthdays & Christmas are 2 top card giving days with 86% of buyers stating they have bought cards for these gifts.
• Gift Cards make up 31.3% of graduation presents.
• 68% of customers who have purchased gift cards said they prefer cards acceptable at multiple locations.
• The average gift card buyer has 12 different gift cards, but only keeps 3 of them in their wallet.
• Ad space costs more than promotional gift cards.
• Great option to offer as discounted prepaid sales such as for coffee shops, dry cleaners, etc.
• Allows for special vendor related promotions.

Loyalty Programs

• Studies show businesses can increase revenues by approximately 50% by retaining only 5% of their customers. Remember the 80/20 rule?

• Consumer spending is 6% higher for companies with loyalty programs.
• Nearly 75% of shoppers belong to at least one loyalty program.
• The average household has 12 loyalty memberships, but uses only 1 or 2 of them.
• Loyalty cards increase frequency of visits by more than 25%
• When paired with gift cards, loyalty programs can increase sales by over 70%
• When paired with a gift program, loyalty programs can increase frequency by more than 35%
• Loyalty programs can include rewards for things such as:
  • Rewards per dollar spent
  • Rewards based on frequency, number of purchases or number of visits
  • Rewards based on customer type or level
  • Rewards for special bonuses such as Birthdays, double point lunches, etc
  • New member or product bonuses
  • Random awards such as at certain transaction number
• Provides tracking for purchasing behavior.
• Captures customer profile allowing for more effective and targeted advertising/marketing.
• Allows for more interaction with the customer and improves customer satisfaction.