The blitz is on! Turkey food coma day has yet to come, but retailers are advertising and promoting heavily to attract customers through their doors. Here is one suggestion to increase your customer count and hopefully your holiday sales.

Add Extra value for gift card purchases
Why not offer a free coffee with the purchase (or reload) of $25 or more? You can also offer extra value (purchase any gift card in the amount of $50 or more, and we will match 10%, 20% etc). Set your extra value thresholds to what you are comfortable with, but enough to make sure the customer feels like they are getting a deal. Given all the doom and gloom of the economy, promotions like these will make your customer feel like a savvy shopper and be less reluctant to part with their cash.

National chains like Jamba Juice, Red Robin, (even the Mermaid Coffee Shop through Costco) etc. are doing similar promotions through the holidays, so why not your coffee shop?

One thing you need to consider is your gift card program itself. If you have a third party program charging you fees everytime you swipe the card through the terminal, this is now a less appeal promotion compared to having a NO FEE gift card program. Overall, fees or not, doing something is better than nothing. Benefits include:
-You collect the money upfront (Yay, increase cash flow! Watch this though, because this should be treated like a liability from an accounting standpoint).
-Customers already spent the money, so if there's ever a question to go elsewhere, they won't even if there's a bit of a wait.
-Easier to upsell that scone or muffin because they don't have to take out extra cash.
-You will have about a 10%-15% unredeemed value (to make up for those fees, no less. If you have a NO FEE gift card program, more power to you).
NOTE: some states consider unredeemed value as unclaimed property, so you might have to turn that over to your state. Check your local laws just to be sure.


And who knows, maybe a handful of these gift card recipients might actually convert into regular customers.