Gift Cards

With the Book Sense Gift Card Program in full swing, and the holiday season just around the corner, booksellers participating in the program should note that important updated information is available at the Book Sense Gift Card Web page at http://www.bookweb.org/read/6303.

'Tis the season to be jolly -- especially if you are a retailer. That, at least, seems to be the conclusion of a new National Retail Federation (NRF) survey. The NRF 2003 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch for NRF, found that the average consumer plans to spend $671.89 this holiday season, up 3.6 percent from 2002 when consumers spent an average of $648.85.

With the Book Sense Gift Card Program in full swing, and the holiday season just around the corner, booksellers participating in, or planning to join, the program should note these important announcements regarding the availability of swipes, barcode readers, and receipt printers through ABA, as well as the approach of important deadlines.

Here, BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos provides an update on the latest improvements and enhancements to BookSense.com.

Greetings! There's a lot of BookSense.com news in this edition of On the Move, as we've made more improvements to your BookSense.com site:

As the Book Sense Gift Card program gets into full swing and the holiday season draws closer, booksellers planning to join the Book Sense Gift Card Program should note that they can still order the gift card branded with their own store logo and receive them in time for the holidays. Jill Perlstein, ABA's marketing director, told BTW that a store logo coupled with a gift card's popularity just makes good business sense for a bookstore.

Booksellers who were among the first to sign up for the Book Sense Gift Card program are now receiving their card orders from Givex. Training manuals are being sent in PDF format to booksellers via e-mail from Givex, and ABA is sending a folder to participants that includes a window decal, counter card, and shelf-talkers to help promote the gift cards in the store.

Over the last few weeks as ABA staff has spoken with booksellers about the new Book Sense electronic gift card program, a number of booksellers have asked the question: "In purely financial terms, how many more gift cards will I have to sell to achieve the same number of gross profit dollars as I would have selling paper gift certificates?"

To provide an answer to this question, ABA has prepared a three-year analysis of potential returns comparing paper gift certificate and electronic gift card sales.

The assumptions are:

A number of retail studies have shown that consumers are opting for gift cards in a big way. Among the statistics reported: 70 percent of all gift certificates in 2002 were sold in the card format, and gift card sales are at least 15 to 20 percent higher than gift certificate sales. Stores also benefit from the instant electronic data transmission and online reports that a gift card program provides.

Indigo Books & Music Inc., the Canadian bookseller, switched from paper gift certificates to plastic gift cards in November 2002, and has seen escalating gains since then, according to Keith Liu, vice-president of business development for Indigo. Instituting the gift card program, run by the Givex Corporation, increased Indigo's sales 35 percent over the paper certificates, and, Liu told BTW, "Our stores experienced an immediate uplift, and we're pretty happy about it.

More and more gift buyers are avoiding the decision-making process of book purchasing for the more convenient purchase of a bookstore gift card/certificate, according to recent research conducted by Ipsos BookTrends. If the gift certificate/card growth rate continues through 2005, and total consumer dollars continue to be relatively flat, "it is a good assumption that gift certificates/cards could account for 5 percent of consumer dollars or around $700 million," noted Michael Hoynes, ABA marketing officer.

On August 13, ABA announced that an agreement and order forms to sign up for the Book Sense Electronic Gift Card Program are now available online, at www.BookWeb.org/read/6372. Booksellers participating in the Book Sense marketing program are encouraged to sign the agreement and to order gift cards immediately to have them available for sale by October 1.

In the latest news on Givex, sign up for the Book Sense Gift Card program is imminent! Watch your e-mail for a special notice from ABA's Jill Perlstein with enrollment details within the next week. In the meantime, FAQs, card designs, and other helpful information can be found at: http://www.bookweb.org/read/6303.