Digital Marketing Matters Blog

For ecommerce brands, finding additional ways to increase revenue can sometimes feel like a struggle. Your content strategy is certainly incredibly important, as are other things like keeping your site updated and running quickly, running various A/B tests and doing other types of CRO, and releasing new products. These will all help you boost your sales (and we are happy to help you with any of them), but they all also require a lot of time and effort. While it is well worth that effort, plenty of brands are on the hunt for additional revenue sources that don’t require as big of a budget or don’t take as long to see results from. Does that sound like you?

Here we walk through an exciting new plugin that allows your ecommerce site to offer virtual gift cards to your customers — watch live video below.

If so, you’re in luck. We’ve recently added a new tool to our ecommerce tool belt that we are finding to be an excellent resource for any ecommerce store- virtual gift cards. Gift cards are a great way to increase revenue for your ecommerce brand. Best of all, they’re incredibly cost-effective, and you can start seeing results right away. What’s not to love?

Here at Webdirexion, our preferred ecommerce platform is WooCommerce. It was our mission to find the right gift card solution that would work with WooCommerce, and we are excited to have found it!

Why Gift Cards?

We briefly touched on why gift cards are such a great option for any ecommerce brand but don’t just take our word for it. According to the Blackhawk Network’s 2019 Post Holiday Spending Report, shoppers increased their spending on gift cards by 7% compared to the year before. It was also reported that 80% of consumers said they received some type of gift card during the holiday season.

While that number also includes physical gift cards, virtual gift cards are seeing big increases as well. The report found that 20% of gift cards that were purchased were virtual gift cards, and that is a number that is only expected to rise as shopping online continues to rise in popularity.

Our Gift Card Ecommerce Solution: YITH WooCommerce Gift Cards

Your customers pick a design; choose an amount, enter an email and send a virtual gift card to a friend or family member who will then return and buy at your site.

While there are many plugins that will allow you to offer gift cards at your ecommerce site, the gift card plugin from YITH is our favorite and is what we would recommend to any client. Why? It’s easy to use, incredibly customizable and integrates flawlessly with WooCommerce (our preferred ecommerce platform).

Here are some main features and benefits of the plugin we discuss in our walkthrough video:

• You can allow users to select a pre-determined card value, or have them input a custom amount
• Customers can select a pre-made image or can upload their own image to use instead
• Users have the ability to gift individual products at your store
• You can enable QR codes that allow gift recipients to quickly scan the code with their smartphone and start shopping

If you are interested in getting started with virtual gift cards at your ecommerce store, please contact us today! We can help you from start to finish, including the creation of a pack of custom gift card images that feature your logo.

Watch the full walkthrough below: