Retailers use vouchers & cards for all manner of reasons. Below are some of the main ways in which they are used which benefits the consumer and retailer both:
The purpose of using vouchers or gift cards is to promote sales. Retailers understand that consumers love saving money. As a result, they use vouchers to drive sales. The voucher management or gift card system in this case is selected to come up with a product that will compel more consumers to consider a specific business and do business with it. Being able to save money during a purchase compels consumers to shop more. A voucher may be a discount voucher where as a gift card can be bought by a consumer to gift a friend without having to decide what product to buy for him/her.
Vouchers are also used to build customer loyalty. Once a customer is awarded with the retail voucher, he feels appreciated. This will in turn compel him or her to be a more loyal customer. Similarly a loyal customer of your brand may want to gift something from your brand to someone. A gift card acts as a good product to increase “word of mouth” branding and sales.
Vouchers can be tailored to draw consumers’ attention to a specific product. This works well when trying to increase the sale of a specific product or when introducing a new product. As aforementioned, shoppers love saving money.
When a new outlet has been introduced, retail vouchers or gift cards can be used to compel shoppers to shop in it. You can make them redeemable only in that outlet. Retail vouchers offer many benefits to both retailers and consumers. However, for the retailer to enjoy the most benefits, he must make sure that he is using a foolproof voucher management or gift card system. The wrong system will cause more problems than it solves.