Are there less expensive Gift Card options?

[sciabica1936]

I would like to add gift cards to my shop, custom printed with my logo, but I'm having trouble with the cost.  At $1.50 each, that's more than double the rate from the SAME printer!

$0.59 for 500 custom cards from ECardSystyems: https://ecardsystems.com/giftcardprinting.html

I think of everything in percentages, so if I want to sell a $25 card, the $1.50 is essentially a 6% fee plus the % CC transaction fee.  That's hard to swallow and does not IMO result in a good ROI.

That assumes the cards are not reloaded or reused.  Can anyone who's been using Gift Cards give me feedback on how many get reloaded?  Are you comfortable reusing a gift card once it's been depleted and selling it another customer?

Is there any way to get a Gift Card coded correctly from another printer?

[VRtual]

Basically you guys are sourcing the gift card printing to eCardSystems,com, who normally charges $0.79 each when you order 250 and when placing an order through Square you are charging $1.25 when you order 250. Which means Square is profitting $0.46 per gift card for a 250 order. Even with eCardSystem.com pricing at $0.79 ea is still really high compared to other printers out there. All we would need is the track information and LoCo or HiCo information, so that we can get our own cards printed up elsewhere.

[RSS1]

Hi @Helen,

I just ordered 1000 cards and paid $1030...this is outrageous.

I normally pay less than .50 a card.

We wanted to order twice as many cards, but had to limit the order to 1000 due to the price.

We also typically order 4 different designs at a higher qty. But with your system, each custom graphic resets the qty.

For example if I ordered 1000 ea of 4 different designs...Id still pay the 1000 pricing.

Overall your prices are at gouging levels. I can understand a 10% premium at best...but double??

I felt robbed at checkout 😞

[LSPA]

We noticed the same issue.  We ordered only 1 design and set a high minimum amount for the Square gift cards sale.

Not optimal … it’s the cost of doing business in the Square ecosystem!

[ALIBICOFFEE]

Agree with other users. We would love to offer gift cards to our customers, but Squares pricing is stupid high. We pay you enough money though processing, payroll, etc. and don't appreciate the lack of support. At this point I am refusing to purchase gift cards through square in protest of the high prices, and will absolutely consider other POS solutions. 

[Mrmoo]

I have small ice cream shop.

Most customer wants to buy $5 gift card.

No way of paying this stupid. 

Square better work out something for SMALL BUSINESS

[pessosices]

Hey @Mrmoo 

We also have an ice cream shop, and we've set our minimum for Plastic Cards at $15 for this reason.

Luckily now with being able to sell eGift Cards from the POS, if someone wants a $5-$14 Gift Card, we offer them the eGift Card, which they end up going for. 

It's not a perfect solution, but it works!

[Mrmoo]

Your customers must be genius.

Egift card?  This requires an email. I mean who remembers 6 year old's email address? 

So many customer of mine turned off by egift card. 

[pessosices]

They do not have to put the recipients’ email address. They can put their own, and either later forward that email or print it on paper and give it to them. 

[Mrmoo]

Ok.

85 years old grandma wants to buy gift card. She doesnt have email or smart phone. 

What other way to sell egift card? Thanks

[redstickspice]

Clearly there is confusion here. An “e-gift card” is an electronic virtual gift card. It’s sole purpose is to deliver electronically. If you don’t have an email account you can’t use this type of gift card.

this is where a physical card comes in.

e-gift cards are an option. If they don’t work for your customer then don’t use them. We offer both, which is what most businesses do.

[sweetsnack]

From my experience the gift card pricing is competitive with at least the vendor I have been using. We pay $30 per month and the cards cost around $1 each when ordering 500. Even this is worth it as we use the gift cards as a "club card". Customers join the club by pre-paying for our product by putting funds on their card. They get a discount based on how much they put on the card and then when they come in they use the card for payment rather than cash or credit cards. This is more a loyalty program than anything else, but we use gift cards to facilitate it. We have customers who have been using the same card for 7 years now - reloading them hundreds of times over the years and it is extremely profitable for us.  We have been in the process of migrating to Square but we may backtrack now due to limitations on Squares gift card program. We need to be able to offer different discounts on cards based on the amount the customer puts on the card and we need to be able to refer to it as a club card rather than a gift card. We also need the discounts to be automatically applied based on the amount of the "gift card" sale. We are still reviewing if there is a way to make it work with Square gift cards but unless we figure something out we will be going to a competitive POS that is more flexible.  

[Twoboysdad]

Here is my thought on the subject.

We are a small food truck.  We are not even open 12 months as the winters can be hard.  and what we are open in the winter is maybe 2 or three days a month.

I am not interested in a large amount of cards to make it cheaper.  In fact, the 75 cards for 2.00 each is still more cards than I need or would use.  And taking 2 dollars away from each sale would be too costly for such a small business.

The option I would like to see is, allowing us to purchase blank cards.  Staple for instance, you can purchase blank, plain white, cards in small packs.  I can throw a sticker on them. then I just need to load them.

Otherwise, the e gift card is the only thing I ever will participate in because other options are too costly.

[Kassi_]

Hi @Twoboysdad -

Thank you so much for the feedback on our Gift Cards! We appreciate you taking the time letting us know what would work for your type of business. 

[JenniferR1]

It seems absolutely ridiculous to pay $58.41 for fed ex ground to Hawaii for 250 cards. This could be packed in a flat rate box packed in a flat rate box and shipped USPS. I called and left a message but no one has called me back. 

[sayra]

Hey @JenniferR1 - I feel you on this. Not sure how much of a change we can make here as I am sure we are just complying with our carrier rates. We appreciate your feedback and will take it into consideration. 

Have a good day!

[UsernameHere]

Since the OP's question wasn't answered in your reply (or by anyone else over the last 4-5 years since this was posted) has anything changed regarding Square being willing to help their own customers not be forced into paying astronomical fees on physical gift cards?

So many printers offer fully custom barcoded magnetic stripped  cards for pennies each, and as of Q4 2021, Square is somehow still charging, and I triple checked this to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, between $1-2 PER GIFT CARD.

To add insult to injury (actually being penalized for being a loyal client of Square's merchant services with enormous price inflation), the website we're pigeonholed to (still, after years) literally advertises their own cards (for merchants not constrained by the limitations of being faithful clients of Square) for less than 1/2 the cost of Square during the checkout process which is transferred to their site.

Obviously, there's the unmistakable hallmark of backdoor dealing, price padding, and exorbitant profiteering going on here, and I can't make sense of it, since Square already gets a piece of the profit these small businesses like our sweat and toil to earn -- why do they have to make such dramatic suffocating revenues off their patrons coming and going?

The entire situation is truly a case study in proof positive underhanded antics of a business still operating as though it's the glory days of 1980-1990's usury and fees under the guise of "proprietary" systems -- as if a magnetic strip and barcode is a national secret or a newfangled patented modern miracle. We processed a quarter-million dollars PER LOCATION in just in-person swipes in 2020 during the worst year of our company history spanning 14 years... and to re-up our gift card stash for Christmas 2021 we're raked over the coals of cost gouging without explanation or apology.

[rabidnerd]

I am thinking it is likely the reason why anyone on this thread over the years just realizes Square HAS NO INTEREST in the small number of us who are willing to drop them over this as they make insane markups on the overpriced cards through the unnecessary vendor they use.

Maybe someday.

Good luck square customers

[rabidnerd]

I agree with the "too expensive" notes.

If *I* want to roll my own plastic cards that have magstripes with my magstripe writer, can I write the free ecards to them?

If not, explain why me writing my own magstripe cards would be one bit less secure than ecards, at all.

They're closed-loop cards, so I should be defining the rules, not Square.

[MMontgomery]

Last year we purchased cards through Square. We just our cards as club membership cards and our members can load up bar credit on the card (and get a 10% members discount when using the "gift" card)

This worked well except that the cards were all the same, no member name, photo etc.

So, we purchased a card printer a couple of months ago in the hope that we could use our own cards through Square. It turns out that was a pipe dream. 

Even with COVID we have managed to put $200k through Square (and they keep their 1.9%) but as we need to make our own cards work, it looks like we will have to move to another POS provider. It is a real pity as we really like the Square system but, as they can't or won't provide the information necessary to allow our cards to work with their system we are left with no other option.

[toyssamurai]

Square has custom gift cards: 

https://ecardsystems.com/square/custom.html?country=us

I wonder if you could simply buy a bunch of them, leave the customization blank and print on them instead.

[MMontgomery]

It is an option we have thought about but it is around 7 times the price of cards from elsewhere

Average price per 125 blank HiCO cards (non square) $27 USD delivered

Price for plain Square Cards (125) $137.50 plus $58 delivery

We will produce around 1000 cards per year for our members so this is a cost we cannot afford