Why this matters
A gift card is a sale with no inventory risk, no shipping, and no guessing about size or color. Last-minute shoppers pick whichever business makes gifting easy — and skip the ones that don't. If you're not set up before the season, that revenue goes to a competitor.
What "done" looks like
- Customers can buy a digital gift card from your site in under a minute
- Physical cards or vouchers sit at the register, visible without asking
- At least one ready-to-give bundle or gift-wrap option exists
- Staff know how to sell, redeem, and check the balance of a card
How to do it
- Turn on the gift-card feature in tools you already use. Shopify supports gift cards on all plans; Square's eGift cards are free to set up, with physical cards from about $0.50 each.
- Set denominations to match your typical order value so a card covers a real purchase.
- Make them visible: homepage link, register signage, email signature.
- Create one gift bundle — bestsellers, pre-wrapped, one price — for shoppers who don't want to choose.
- Write the redemption policy down: expiration (many states restrict it), lost cards, partial redemption.
- Brief your staff so the answer to a gift-card question is never a shrug.
Common mistakes
- Launching cards in December instead of before the shopping season starts
- Digital-only setup at a walk-in business — the card at the counter is the impulse buy
- Ignoring state rules on expiration dates and fees
Real-world examples
- Shopify makes gift cards available on every plan, including the cheapest — issuing costs nothing beyond normal payment processing.
- Square lets small businesses sell eGift cards from a free hosted page they can link in social bios, with no monthly fee for the digital product.
From a founder's point of view
Gift cards do two quiet jobs: they bring in cash today, and they walk a brand-new customer through the door in January when things are slow. That second job is worth as much as the first.
Rule of thumb
If a stranger can gift your product in under a minute without talking to you, you're ready for the season.