Electronic Gift Cards

[Danlaundry]

Has anyone added electronic Gift Cards for their W&F? Looking to increase business and have an edge with the local University nearby and thought an electronic gift card would work as we do not take credit cards. Thought the student parents could buy their kids an electronic gift card to wash their clothes.

Don’t know how one of these works but notice they are getting more and more popular and read they are exceeding paper gift certificates.

[glennus]

how many of the parents come in with the kids that do their laundry at your store? i think its a decent idea but fear you dont have a concrete way to reach your target consumer on the gift cards.

[azkid]

Are you a card store? Obviously you could do this easily with a card system. If you don't have a card system, you would need to buy a reader to read and debit/credit card values, you would also need to buy cards of course. IMO it would not be cost effective.

[Danlaundry]

Parents don’t have to come in with their students. All they have to do is mail a check to put money back on the gift card when depleted.

No I am not a card store, cash only. Do not take credit cards and do not want to but yes would have to get a reader for the electronic gift card. It seems like a good idea to me as you have your money up front thus a “float” and if they loose their card or don’t use it all it’s free money. I have 2 colleges nearby; one is a major state university with tens of thousands attending so is a big market to tap.

[Duane]

I have a card store and parents always load up the kids card with $50 or more. Some parents will also send a check to add value to their kids laundry card (via my website). I would say that if you have a card store you can promote the "gift card" concept with the card system you are already using. However the extra cost of buying, processing and handling the gift cards probably isn't worth the hassle.

Your best bet is to put in an ATM. This way you can charge customers for the transaction rather than paying for the transaction via a credit card or gift card.

An ATM is simple to install, easy to operate and all you have to do is keep putting cash inside. Each day I have two deposits into my ATM checking account. One deposit is for the money that was withdrawn and the other is for the processing fees. I receive 100% of the processing fee which I have set at $1.50. You control what bills to dispense and what to charge. My ATM dispenses $10.

You also don't need an attendant with an ATM.

Duane.

www.LMARIES.com (http://www.LMARIES.com)

[rpeters]

I have students. I just bill the parents