There are various ways to attract clients to an e-commerce site. One of the best ways is to sell gift certificates for visitors to purchase and give to their family, friends and co-wokers. Gift certificates are great because not only do you make money off the sale whether the gift certificate is then used or not, the certificate itself is a good promotion for your site. Have you ever received a certificate as a gift to a store or restaurant you’ve never heard of? Having the certificate makes it almost certain that you will use it, and familiarize yourself with the new business. The same applies to selling gift certificates for your e-commerce site. The certificates can expose your business to new customers who may have not heard about you before. Most of the biggest retail websites, such as Amazon and Nordstrom, offer customers to buy gift cards online, so why don’t you?
If you have a WordPress e-commerce site, there are a varity of plugins you can choose from if you have WooCommerce. WooCommerce is a free plugin that allows users to customize their selling and shipping options. As I explained in my previous blog, “WooCommerce – The Best WordPress E commerce Plugin,” WooCommerce is a payment gateway that allows your visitors to purchase and pay for items from your site. It also works with mail carriers to allow buyers to pick what shipping options they want, and pay for shipping right on your site.
Below is a list of various gift certificate plugins for your WordPress site:
1. WooCommerce Gift Certificates Pro: This is a great plugin for creating a gift certificate template online for your site. The latest version offers many convenient features. Here are some of the best features the site lists:
- Use a template to customize your gift certificate.
- Allow users to buy gift cards online to use as an e-voucher, or print them.
- Let customers chose the amount for the certificate, or provide predetermined amounts that they can choose from.
- The voucher codes are unique, so individuals cannot use them more than once.
- You can offer a free gift certificate with the purchase of a product.
- Give people the option to buy gift cards online and e-mail them to themselves, or send them directly to someone else’s e-mail.
- Allow the amount for the gift card to be used only in a single purchase, or spread out over numerous purchases.
- Set expiration dates.
- Set prefixes on the gift certificate template that allows you to figure out the product sales related to the codes.
- Access report data that “includes code, buyer, order number, date of purchase, type of voucher, amount of voucher, and recipient information. And, you can easily search within a report to find exactly what you’re looking for. Plus, you can export your reports to CSV, Excel, PDF, clipboard, or print – all with one click of a button!”
This plugin starts at $89 and can be easily purchased and uploaded to your WordPress site.
2. WooCommerce Smart Coupons – Smart Coupons is another great source that allows individuals to buy gift cards online from your site. According to the WooCommerce site, this plugin lets customers send the gift card to multiple people in various ways, such as manually sending e-mails with store credits. Some of the features of this plugin are:
- “Let customers enter coupon receiver details / custom messages during checkout
- Automatic credit balance maintenance
- Set expiry date in days, weeks, months & years after coupon generation”
- tight security”
However, what’s really great about Smart Coupons is that it helps you not only with creating a gift certificate template, but also helps you set sale strategies. For example, “find out your average order size – let’s say $175. Create a Store Credit / Gift Certificate coupon for higher amount – $250. Create a new product and price it at a value slightly above average order size. In this case, the new product can be priced at $200. Ensure the discount is lucrative enough. What you’ve just done is attracted your customers with a good discount, made them pay in advance, and continue spending in future to deplete their credit balance,” the site explains. Or, “Create a discount / credit coupon that is valid between a particular time range. Smartly price the coupon. Promote the offer in advance, you can even keep raising the offer price as coupon start time comes closer. This will create scarcity and prompt people to buy more and buy earlier.”
This plugin retails for $99 for a single license.
The team at Behla Design is dedicated to creating visual experiences that effectively tell our clients’ stories while engaging, exciting, and enticing their customers. Our firm consists of the top web design and development, WordPress, search engine optimization (SEO), and copy writing professionals. Our founder, Andrew Behla, has worked in the graphic, print and web design industry for over twenty years.
For more information about making your site mobile friendly, contact Behla Design.
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