Record garden centre sales of gift cards over Christmas
Sales of National Garden Gift Card hit record levels over the Christmas period, which will help boost garden centre footfall in the coming season. There are now £4.7m of unspent gift cards in circulation, with most set to be spent in garden centres soon at over 700 redeeming sites.
Garden centres can now sell, as well as redeem the cards, helping to drive footfall. Operationally the added benefit with the Garden Gift Card is that all the settlement is carried out electronically and you don’t have to pay in advance for gift card stock, which makes the cash flow so much better for you than the paper schemes.
There are also developments on the paper voucher front with a new series of eight wallet designs available from February. These designs are taken from the winners of the national photography competition held at the end of last year. They are our most inspiring set of images yet, and because they have been submitted by customers we can be confident they will appeal. Also, it will be possible to order the designs that you want rather than a mixed selection.
Martin Simmons, HTA Director of Operations comments: “It is really encouraging to see the level of gift card sales over Christmas.
"We have some exciting plans for the gifting schemes in 2018, including supporting National Children’s Gardening Week (26 May to 3rd June) and so look out for details about resources to promote this – and help drive families into store.
"We will be using the schemes and their social media channels to promote gardening generally and also repeating our national garden photography competition later in the year.”
