A gift card programme is the simplest new product most small businesses can add. You already have the thing people want to give; a gift card just lets someone else pay for it in advance. It brings in money before the work is done, introduces your business to people who have never bought from you, and in the weeks before a holiday it can be the easiest sale you make. This guide covers how to plan one, what to decide, how to promote it and how to set it up on a Vonza store. The product page is gift cards.
Why gift cards work for a small business
Three things happen when someone buys a gift card from you. You are paid now for a product or service you deliver later. A new person, the recipient, arrives at your store with money already committed to spending it with you. And because gift amounts are round numbers and orders rarely are, the recipient often spends a little more than the card, or comes back with the balance.
Gift cards also fix a seasonal problem. Buyers who want to support you in December but cannot choose a product for someone else can buy a card instead of buying nothing. The same goes for last-minute gifts: a card delivered by email arrives in minutes.
What to decide before you start
Amounts. Offer a short list of fixed amounts that match your prices, such as $25, $50 and $100, and let buyers pick a custom amount if your range is wide. Fixed amounts make the decision easy; the custom option catches the buyer who wants to give exactly the price of a specific item.
Expiry. Decide whether cards expire and, if so, when. Rules differ by country and region, and some set a minimum validity, so check what applies where you sell before you set a date. Whatever you choose, state it on the product page.
Design. A card that looks like a gift gets given. Either pick a ready-made design that suits the occasion or use your own picture, such as your logo on a seasonal background.
Where the card can be used. On your own store, a card is store credit: it pays for anything you sell there. If you also sell courses or coaching through other Vonza checkouts, the same code is accepted there too, so a card can pay for a coaching session as easily as for a product.
Delivery. Decide whether cards go out by email only or whether you will also hand some over in person. An emailed card can be scheduled for a date, which is what most gift buyers want.
Step 1: Create the gift card product
In Vonza, open Products in your dashboard, create a product and choose Gift card as the kind: "store credit people can give". Set the fixed amounts you decided on, and tick "custom amount" if you want buyers to type their own; the store then shows a "From …" price on the product page. Set an expiry in days, or leave the card open.
Pick one of the ten built-in designs, named Classic, Confetti, Botanical, Midnight, Blush, Ocean, Birthday, Holiday, Thank you and Minimal, or upload your own picture. Write a short description that says what the card buys and whether it expires, and publish. The gift card gets its own page on your store with its own address, page title and meta description, like any product.
If you want to offer a few occasion-specific cards, such as a birthday card and a holiday card, create one product per design; the templates in the "Gift cards" category give you a finished page to start from.
Step 2: Understand how the card works for the buyer
When someone buys a gift card, they can keep it for themselves or send it as a gift at checkout. Sending it means adding the recipient's email, a message, a From name and a send date. One order can send a card to up to 20 people, each with their own message and date, which suits a team lead buying for the whole team or a grandparent buying for every grandchild.
Each recipient gets an email with a claim link to their own card page. The page shows the design, the message, the amount and a code in the shape GC-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX, and its link stays live for two years. If the recipient has a Vonza account, the card and its balance also appear in their account, next to their orders and downloads.
A card cannot be used to buy another card, which keeps the programme simple and prevents the obvious loop.
Step 3: Understand how redemption and balances work
At your checkout, the recipient enters the code and the card's value comes off the order. The part that matters for a programme, rather than a one-off card, is the balance: a card keeps whatever is left across orders. A $100 card on a $50 order gives $50 off and leaves $50 on the card. The recipient can see the balance and each use in their Vonza account.
Refunds follow the same logic. If you refund an order that was paid with a gift card, the money goes back on the card rather than disappearing, so the recipient can spend it again.
Because the card is accepted at your store checkout and at your other Vonza checkouts, a buyer who was given a card for your shop can also spend it on your workshop or coaching package. Say so on the product page; it widens the audience for the card.
Step 4: Manage cards from the Gifts section
The Gifts section in Products lists gifts and gift cards that have been sent. For each card you can resend the email, send it now rather than waiting for the scheduled date, or send it to another address when a buyer typed the recipient's email wrong. Scheduled cards show the date they will arrive.
You can also gift from your side: pick a customer and a product, and the product is added to their account with an order confirmation. That is useful for a thank-you to a loyal customer, a prize for a contest, or a replacement when something went wrong.
Step 5: Promote the programme
A gift card nobody knows about sells nothing. Treat the launch like any product launch, then put the card where gift buyers look.
- Put it in your navigation and your bio. Add the gift card to a collection called "Gifts" with your most giftable products, and link that collection from your link in bio. A collection link opens your store filtered to it.
- Lead with the dates. Before a holiday, say when a card still arrives on time. An emailed card arrives in minutes, so the answer is "right up to the day", and that is your headline for the final week.
- Offer it as an order bump. An order bump is a tick box under the buy button that offers another product. A small gift card beside a popular product turns one gift into two.
- Email your customers. Your existing buyers are the warmest audience for a gift card, because they already know what the recipient will get. Email them in early November and again in the last week before the holiday, with the card's link and the delivery promise.
- Make the card a product in its own right. Occasion cards such as a birthday or a thank-you design sell all year, not only in December.
Step 6: Measure it
Insights shows views, paid orders, revenue after refunds, conversion and where visitors came from for the last 7, 30 or 90 days, and the top products list tells you how the gift card ranks against the rest of your catalogue. Add a UTM tag to the links in your gift emails and the Sources chart will show how much of the card's traffic came from them.
Two numbers are worth watching after the holiday: how many cards have been redeemed, which you can see from the balances and uses in the Gifts section and the orders that used a code, and how many recipients came back to buy again with their own money. The second one is the real return on the programme.
Common mistakes
Too many amounts. Six fixed amounts and a custom field is noise. Three amounts and a custom option is plenty.
Hiding the terms. Expiry and where the card can be used belong on the product page, in plain words. Surprises at redemption lose the recipient, who was never your customer in the first place.
Launching in the last week. Gift buyers plan earlier than you think. Have the card live by early November and remind people as the dates close in.
Forgetting the recipient. The recipient is a new customer with money to spend. Make sure the welcome email they get, the store they land on and the checkout they use are all as good as for a paying buyer.
Where to start
Open Products in your Vonza dashboard, create a gift card product with three amounts and a design, and put it in a "Gifts" collection today. New to Vonza? The store, gift cards included, is part of every Vonza plan with a 14-day free trial; the plans are on pricing, and the gift cards page covers the feature in detail. Selling physical goods as well? See shipping rates and local pickup for the other half of a gift-ready store.
