Put gift cards in the main menu from November, give them one page that answers every question, and sell them online with delivery by email on a date the buyer chooses, redeemable at your counter.

Available at the counter, if you ask

Plenty of businesses sell gift cards. A restaurant keeps a stack by the till, a spa prints certificates, a bookshop has cards in a drawer under the counter.

The website mentions them in one line at the bottom of the page, or not at all. There is no way to buy one without coming in.

In December, gift cards are close to the easiest sale a business makes: paid in advance, nothing to ship, no size or colour to get wrong.

And the people looking for them are often the ones who cannot come in.

Who is looking for the page

The first is the customer a counter-only card can never reach. Someone in Ontario buying for a sister in Nanaimo is not going to drive over, and will buy a gift card from a business that sells them online.

Why it ends up in the footer

Gift cards usually arrive as an afterthought. The till software offered them, the business printed some, and they sold at the counter without anyone touching the website.

When the site was built, gift cards were one more item on a long list, and they got a line in the footer because nobody had decided where else they belonged.

It never feels urgent, because the lost sales leave no trace. Nobody phones to say they bought a gift card somewhere else.

Making the page findable

From November to the end of December, put Gift cards in the main menu, by name. Move it back to a quieter spot in January.

Give it a section on the home page in those weeks, and its own page with a plain title, so a search for your business name and gift card leads straight to it.

Then point to it from everywhere customers look: a post on your Google listing, the Facebook page, the holiday emails, receipts and the sign at the counter.

Selling it online

The page should let people buy, not just learn that cards exist. Choose an amount, pay, done.

Offer a few fixed amounts and a custom one. Fixed amounts make the decision easy, and the custom amount catches the buyer who already has a figure in mind.

Many point-of-sale and online store systems can sell gift cards online and accept them at the counter from the same records. That connection matters more than anything else on the page.

Delivery by email, on the right day

Most online gift cards arrive as an email with a code. That suits December, because nothing needs posting and nothing can arrive late.

Let the buyer choose who receives it and when: straight to them to print, or to the recipient on a date they pick, such as Christmas morning.

Add room for a short personal message, a design that looks like a gift rather than an invoice, and plain instructions for using it.

Send it from an address on your own domain, so it is recognisably from you and less likely to be mistaken for junk.

A worked example

A day spa on a suburban shopping street sold gift certificates at the front desk, printed on card and signed by hand. Its website mentioned them in one line at the foot of the treatments page.

Every December, the front desk took calls from people wanting to buy one by phone. Some sales went through, with card numbers read out over the line; many callers lived out of town and gave up on the idea.

This year, the spa turned on the online gift card feature in the booking and point-of-sale software it already used.

The website gained a Gift cards item in the main menu, and a page offering dollar amounts and a few named treatments.

Buyers can have a card emailed to themselves or to the recipient on a chosen date, with a message. The code works at the front desk, against the same balance.

The page sets out the terms for treatment cards before anyone pays, and it is mentioned in the newsletter, on receipts and on a sign by the desk.

What the page has to say

One page should answer every question a buyer or a recipient might have, so nobody needs to phone.

What the card can be used for, and where: in person, online, or both. The amounts. How delivery works and how fast. How the recipient redeems it, and how to check the balance.

Whether it expires. Most provinces, BC included, restrict expiry dates on gift cards sold for money, with narrow exceptions such as a card for one specific service. Check the current rules before printing a date.

And a button that says what it does. Buy a gift card tells the visitor exactly what happens when they press it.

Watching for fraud

Gift cards are a favourite purchase for anyone using stolen card numbers, because a code can be spent or resold within minutes.

Watch for several high-value cards bought in a row, sent to different email addresses. Let the payment provider's fraud checks run, and hold any order that looks wrong until someone has checked it.

The counter-case

Not every business needs online sales this year. If cards sell mostly to regulars at the counter, a findable page saying where and when to buy them is a good start.

Connecting online sales to the till takes some setup. Where a system cannot do it, a manual list of codes works for a handful of cards and becomes error-prone for many.

Either way, start now rather than in mid-December, so the page is found in time.

Wherever gift cards sell at all, the aim is the same: findable, buyable online, and delivered by email.

Before November

  1. Search your name with the words gift card.
  2. Add Gift cards to the main menu.
  3. Write one page that answers every question.
  4. Sell online with delivery by email.
  5. Let buyers choose the delivery date.
  6. Confirm the till accepts online codes.
  7. Mention the page on receipts and emails.

Step six is the one that causes trouble if skipped. A card bought online that the counter cannot redeem turns a gift into an awkward conversation at the till, in front of the person it was meant for.

Wording the buy button follows the same logic as the button that says submit.

Frequently asked questions

Why sell gift cards online?

Many people looking for them cannot come in: relatives in other cities, employers buying for a team, and last-minute shoppers late at night. A counter-only card never reaches them.

Where should the gift card page appear?

In the main menu from November to the end of December, on the home page in those weeks, and linked from your Google listing, Facebook, emails and receipts.

How are online gift cards delivered?

Usually by email with a code, either to the buyer to print or to the recipient on a date the buyer chooses, with a short personal message.

Can gift cards have an expiry date in BC?

Usually not, for cards sold for money. Most provinces, BC included, restrict expiry dates on gift cards, with narrow exceptions such as cards for a specific service. Check before printing any date.

What should the gift card page say?

What the card covers and where, the amounts, how delivery works, how to redeem it and check the balance, whether it expires, and a button that says Buy a gift card.

Are gift cards a fraud risk?

Yes. Stolen card numbers are often used to buy them. Watch for several high-value cards bought in a row or sent to different addresses, and hold suspicious orders.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Gift cards sold only at the counter?

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