Gift and Loyalty Card Processing, Electronic Gift Certificate Acceptance
Digital gifts - rechargeable incentives.
Encore offers a comprehensive electronic gift card solution for single or multi-store merchants. Our gift card solution is offered at no additional cost with every point-of-sale terminal we deploy.
View our collection of sample basic cards
View our collection of sample premium cards
What is an EGC? Paper gift certificates are being replaced with Electronic Gift Cards in the same format as credit cards. Large retail chains have had tremendous success and now they are available to many businesses of any size. Merchants that have issued paper gift certificates in the past find that the Electronic Gift Certificate program eliminates the need for manual tracking and provides detailed reporting of cards issued and redeemed, allowing gift cards to be monitored effortlessly.
Gift cards offer detailed reporting that gives merchants an accurate picture of their return on gift cards that have been issued, at the same time increasing brand awareness with customized gift cards, and an improved refund policy by issuing refunds on gift cards.
Merchants choose either customized cards printed with their logo and business information, or standardized cards which come in an array of colors and have the message "A Gift for You" (or something similar) printed on them. Customized cards provide a unique marketing tool for the merchant.
Operation of the gift card program is similar to processing credit cards. Transactions are quick, easy and flexible.
Gift cards are great for spas, salons, restaurants and specialty retail.
Gift cards also work well as employee incentives. Use them over and over again by simply recharging the card with an amount. This is a great payroll product for many workers who don't use traditional bank accounts.
- High-margin sale for merchant
- Full value is rarely used, creating a deficit that favors the merchant
- Should be used for returns in lieu of giving back cash
- Improves brand awareness like a palm-sized advertisement
- Makes your business seem larger and more up-to-date than you might be perceived otherwise
- More secure from fraud and theft versus paper certificates
- Easier to account for than paper
- No cost program set-up with system upgrade
- No cost set of starter gift cards with system upgrade
- Comprehensive on-line reporting for card auditing, tracking and reconciliation
- Merchants can use the secure, online balance and gift card accounting system. This simplifies the tax liability inherent with prepaid certificates. This allows you to charge a transaction against a customer account in your accounting system.
