Loyalty or gift cards are the gift of choice. Approximately 70% of American households have one or several that are in use regularly.

• Gift cards are easier to issue and track than paper gift certificates due to their electronic format, and are less susceptible to fraud because they are harder to counterfeit.
• They can be redeemed at more retail venues than gift certificates due to their ability to be processed through retailers’ existing processing platform.
• Branded cards (sporting the business logo, artwork, etc.) act as a portable advertisement for the merchant or vendor, encouraging first-time and repeat business
• More and more corporations are using gift cards to pay employees, and to execute employee and customer loyalty/incentive programs.

Gift cards are an excellent, affordable, and very effective marketing tool to attract new customers and reward loyal customers — all on the same card!

Only a few dollars a day!

Gift cards are stored value cards that your customers purchase from you with an assigned value at point of purchase, and redeem at your business. They are also useful for issuing store credits for returned merchandise.

Loyalty can be as simple as a punch-card type of program where, for instance, 10 cups of coffee buys your next cup free or a points-for-dollars program where $1 equals one point. Gift, or in this case, loyalty cards are also a popular way to reward customers for choosing to do business with you. You can motivate them to return by giving them a percentage back on their card for purchases made each time - never letting the card expire or lose value. This is the loyalty component. Customers express loyalty (a positive attitude built up over a series of interactions with you) with their wallets.

The best news? Through ProfitPoint, Inc., gift and loyalty programs run on the same card and are monitored individually for easy reporting!

No bigger than a business card, these cute little plastic cards feature your artwork (logo, etc.) and function as colorful reminders of your business every time the customer opens their wallet. Click here to view a sample card.

There are two types of card — traditional magnetic strips that swipe and require a dial-up connection, and chip-based “smart” cards that store data on the chip and require no dial-up. They are the fastest to process.

You cancel the card and reissue another with the same amount of value.

Approximately five business days from art approval.

Only by your choice—but the feature is available. You can set expiration dates and/or automatic withdrawal of fees from the value on the cards for each week, month, or year of inactivity.

Your terminal features nightly batch reporting and you have access to your overall card/customer activity online via the Internet.