With Black Friday around the corner, I thought it would be appropriate for me to provide everyone my thoughts on gift card sales in MedSpas.
I speak from a voice of experience when it comes to gift cards. Back in 1989, I started selling gift certificates in my two Boston spas. At the time, we were very excited when we did a $50K season in each location. By 1993, we were doing $50K days in each of the spas. In addition, in the earlier part of this decade I consolidated over 20 of the best Day Spas in the country. That entity did over $10M a year in gift card sales.
Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that due to the higher price point and the fact that many Medspas are more clinical in nature, gift card sales will never be as high as is typical in a day or resort spa.
But needless to say there are still gift card opportunities in a Medical Spa environment. Here are my top 5 Rules when selling gift cards:
- Always sell services, series of services or packages not dollar amounts. This provides much greater up-selling opportunities.
- Always recommend that a 15% gratuity be included. Here is my standard script, “For the convenience of the recipient would you care to include the gratuity?”
- Have a gift guide setup in dollar ranges that lists services, series and packages available for the clients to peruse at point of sale.
- Provide your team a gift card sales goal with incentive. Typically the incentive could be anywhere from 1 – 5% of the gift cards sales split pro-rata amongst the front desk team. Keep it fun and track the goal daily.
- Don’t be too aggressive on your promotion. People buy gift cards for convenience, reputation, and credibility; not because it’s cheap. I like the give and you shall receive approach. For every $100 in gift cards purchased the client receives $15 of gift cards for themselves.
Hopefully you will be able to implement this program by Black Friday. Good luck with your gift card season. Keep me posted how you do.
FXA