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A Town & City Gift Card or Scotland Loves Local Gift Card is the ultimate ‘shop local’ Gift Card and a proven method to help drive traffic and spend to your business. Here are our top tips for local businesses to maximise success with your local Gift Card.
1. It’s free for businesses
Town & City Gift Cards and Scotland Loves Local Gift Cards lock spend into local communities. It’s free for businesses to join and you need no additional equipment to accept the card. See how to join the Town & City Gift Card and Scotland Loves Local Gift Card family here.
2. It’s easy for customers
A Town & City Gift Card or Scotland Loves Local Gift Card is a prepaid Mastercard, and gets processed as a Mastercard (not a Gift Card). Digital versions can be added to digital wallets, so customers can pay using their phones.
3. Spend it in one business, or lots!
As long as there are funds on the Gift Card, recipients can spend it with any of the participating businesses. Once registered, your business will feature on the relevant Gift Card page, boosting awareness of your business (hint – this is linked to your Google listing, so do check your listing is up to date).
4. Easily check a balance
Customer not sure what the balance is on their Gift Card? They can easily check their balance and view their transaction history here or by scanning the QR code on the back of their Gift Card.
5. Swipe to pay with physical
A physical Town & City Gift Card or Scotland Loves Local Gift Card can be swiped or the card details entered manually to process your sale. Occasionally, it may ask for a PIN, which is the last 4 digits on their Gift Card.
6. And tap to pay with digital
A digital Town & City Gift Card or Scotland Loves Local Gift Card gets added to digital wallets like Google or Apple Pay. Once added, customers can ‘tap to pay’ with their Gift Card.
7. Split payments are fine
If a customer wants to treat themselves to something with a higher value than is loaded onto their Gift Card, that’s fine! First process the exact balance on the Gift Card as a Mastercard. Then, process the amount left to pay using another payment method such as a bank card, credit card or cash.
8. Let people know you accept the card
Our local Gift Cards drive visits to towns and cities quickly, with most people spending their cards within 1-3 months. Why not shout about the fact that you accept the Gift Card on social media to encourage customers to visit you? You’ll receive social media assets from us when you register. Not received them? Drop us a line at support@mi-cnx.com.
9. It’s recyclable
Remember, once people have spent their Town & City Gift Card or Scotland Loves Local Gift Card and there’s no remaining balance, they can remove the black magnetic stripe and pop the card in with their paper recycling.
10. Need a hand?
If you have a customer at the till trying to spend their Gift Card, you can call EML Customer Service on 0121 268 3210. This team can also relink your business if you change your terminal, or get in touch with us at support@mi-cnx.com.
11. Share your story
The multi-award winning Town & City Gift Card and Scotland Loves Local Gift Card concept, delivered by Miconex supports 200 towns and cities globally, 20,000 businesses, and with over £45million in local spend delivered. As the ‘shop local’ champions, we love sharing stories of local businesses thriving through their local Gift Card. Got a story to share? Contact us at support@mi-cnx.com.
