How to Sell More Gift Cards
To sell more gift cards, put them where people pay, make them easy to buy for any amount, and hand each one over as a present. Then remind people before each gifting date, offer them to local companies, and count what sells each month, so you keep what works.
Each idea below comes with the card or carrier feature that makes it work. It’s worth the effort: about six in ten people who use a gift card spend more than its value, according to the Gift Card & Voucher Association’s State of the Nation 2024 report. To set cards up, see our gift card printing guide. Prices are on our gift cards page.
The short versionKeep cards by the till in euro slot carriers, with a sign that says any amount. Mention them when people pay and as a visit ends. Hand every card over in a carrier or wallet. Keep them on show all year for birthdays, and push them before Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Christmas. Offer them to local companies. Put an offer’s conditions in the ad itself, and count the cards sold and spent every month.
How do I sell more gift cards at the counter?
Put them where people stand to pay, and make buying one as quick as buying anything else. People still buy gift cards in person: in the first half of 2025, 48.8% of gift card buyers bought at least one physical card in a shop, the Gift Card & Voucher Association found.
- The euro slot. A die cut slot hangs the euro slot display carrier on a retail hook, so the cards hang on show where people pay.
- Die cut slits hold the card in place, so each one is ready to hand over.
- A sign that says any amount. A write-on panel on the back of the card takes the amount at the till, so one design covers every budget.
- The till, where every customer stops to pay.
- Say it as people pay. One line is enough: “We do gift cards, for any amount.” Make it a habit for everyone on the till, especially in the two weeks before each gifting date.
- Write the amount in at the till. Write-on panels take an ordinary ballpoint pen, so staff can fill in the amount, To and From, and the valid-until date as they sell.
- Make each sale quick to record. Give every card its own printed number and note each sale in your register, or use a barcode your till reads if it holds gift card balances.
- Add a line to your receipts, such as “Gift cards available here, for any amount”.
- Reward whoever sells the most. A small monthly prize for your staff keeps gift cards in mind on busy days.
Our gift card display ideas cover stands, windows and signs in more detail.
How do I sell gift cards at the table or the chair?
Bring them up as the visit ends, when the customer has just enjoyed what a card would buy. Keep it to a quiet mention, not a sales pitch.
Name the experience rather than the dishes, because menus change. Each named item is its own design, so ask us to quote for each. Our pages for restaurants, pubs and bars and for salons and barbers go further.
How do I sell gift cards on my website and social media?
Give gift cards their own page on your website and their own posts before each gifting date, with a photo of the real card in its carrier and a clear way to buy one.
- A gift card page. Say what the cards buy, how to buy one and how long it lasts, with a photo of the card in its carrier.
- Make the expiry date clear. In the Gift Card & Voucher Association’s 2025 report, expiry dates were the most common reason UK consumers gave for not buying gift cards, at 28%. If yours expire, the date must be clear and the terms fair: see our gift card expiry rules.
- Sell by post. A landscape wallet folds to 75 x 105mm and fits a standard envelope, so a card ordered online or by email can go in the post with a handwritten message.
- A QR code on the back takes the person who receives the card to your website or booking page. The same code on every card is part of your design and costs nothing extra.
- Post before each date. Show the card in its carrier a week or two before Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day. If a post has an offer, its conditions go in the post itself: see bonus offers and the rules.
- Email your customers, but only those who agreed to hear from you, or past customers who bought something similar and were offered an opt-out when you took their details and in every email since. The ICO calls this the soft opt-in.
Your regulars are worth asking: in January 2026, 32% of UK consumers agreed they buy gift cards to support companies they like, in a survey by the Gift Card & Voucher Association and GlobalData.
When do gift cards sell best?
Around birthdays and Christmas, by a long way. In the Gift Card & Voucher Association’s State of the Nation 2025 report, 66% of gift card buyers had bought one for a birthday in the past 12 months and 45% for Christmas. Life events came next at 19%, then just-to-say gifts at 12%, with Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Easter and Father’s Day at 6% to 8% each.
- JanuaryCount what sold over Christmas, and plan the year
- FebruaryValentine’s Day, 14 February
- MarchMother’s Day: three weeks before Easter Sunday, so the date moves
- AprilEaster: late March or April
- MayNo big gifting day
- JuneFather’s Day: the third Sunday in June
- JulyNo big gifting day
- AugustPlan Christmas: designs, carriers and offers
- SeptemberOrder cards and carriers for Christmas
- OctoberOffer cards to local companies for Christmas
- NovemberBlack Friday, late November
- DecemberChristmas
December is the busiest month. In GlobalData’s monthly tracking for the Gift Card & Voucher Association in 2023, 25% of UK consumers bought a gift card for someone else in December, against 13% to 18% in the other months. Our guide to Christmas gift cards for your business covers the peak.
Order cards and carriers well before each date: cards take 7 working days from proof approval and payment. Ask us for this year’s last order dates for Christmas at sales@cpcards.co.uk.
How do I sell gift cards to local companies?
Ask local employers to buy your cards as staff gifts, client thank-yous and Christmas presents. Businesses are big buyers: in the second half of 2025, sales to businesses made up 52% of the gift card sales reported by members of the Gift Card & Voucher Association.
- Start with people you know: customers who run businesses, your suppliers, and firms near you.
- Make ordering easy. A short note with what the cards buy, how to order and how you invoice. A write-on panel takes any value, so any budget works.
- Hand them over ready to give, each in a carrier or wallet. A landscape wallet has room for a handwritten message from the company.
- Record the order in your register: the company, and the number and value of every card, so you can see what’s been spent.
- Point employers to HMRC’s rules. Under the trivial benefits rules, an employer pays no tax on a staff gift that cost £50 or less including VAT, if it isn’t cash or a cash voucher, isn’t a reward for work and isn’t in the employee’s contract. HMRC’s manual says a non-cash gift voucher can qualify. Leave the rest to their accountant rather than advising them yourself.
Can other local businesses help me sell gift cards?
Yes. Team up with businesses that serve the same customers without competing with you, and each of you puts the other’s cards in front of new people. That’s worth doing: in the Gift Card & Voucher Association’s September 2024 survey of UK gift card buyers, 22% said a gift card had made them a regular customer of a brand that was new to them.
Keep each card your own: each business sells and redeems only its own cards, so the money and the register stay simple.
Does a card carrier help sell gift cards?
It can. A card handed over bare undersells what the customer has just paid for, and a printed carrier or wallet turns it into a present. In a 2024 survey for the Gift Card & Voucher Association, 28% of UK consumers said gift cards don’t feel thoughtful enough, and the GCVA’s 2025 report names personalised messages and themed packaging as ways to answer that.
- Change the carrier, not the card. Keep one card design all year, and order a carrier design for Christmas or Mother’s Day. The card never dates.
- Offer to write the message. A landscape wallet takes a handwritten message, so offer to write it for the buyer.
- Put your terms and instructions on the carrier too, such as how to spend the card and when it expires. A flat carrier gives you two printed faces, and a wallet four.
| Carrier | Size | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Landscape wallet | 75 x 210mm flat, 75 x 105mm folded | Cards sold over the counter or posted. It takes a handwritten message and fits a standard envelope. |
| Euro slot display carrier | 148 x 105mm (A6) | Cards sold from a display. It hangs on a retail hook, and die cut slits hold the card. |
| Standard display carrier | 148 x 105mm (A6), flat | A simple holder, with glue dots to fix the card and room for your message and terms. |
| Card sleeve | 87 x 60mm, with a thumb notch | Cards that go in a pocket, a bill folder or any envelope. Printed on the outside only. |
Carriers start from £40.00 +vat for 25 standard display carriers, and they’re supplied unattached to the cards. Our design service can set up the carrier and the card together. See card carriers and wallets for every format’s prices, and our guide to designing a gift card carrier.
How do I run a gift card offer, such as a bonus card?
Give every buyer the same bonus, keep it simple, and put the conditions in the ad itself. For example: a £10 bonus card with every £50 gift card, to spend in a quieter month, so it brings people back when you need them.
What has to be in the ad?
The CAP Code, which covers non-broadcast ads and promotions in the UK, says marketing for a promotion must give every significant condition that’s likely to mislead if it’s left out. The ASA’s advice on promotions is that those conditions go in the first thing people see, such as the first post on social media, not only in linked terms. A closing date, limits and who can take part are always likely to count.
- When the offer ends.
- When the bonus card can be spent: its first and last dates.
- Any limits, such as one bonus card per gift card, a minimum spend, days it can’t be used, or not with other offers.
- Where the full terms are.
In a 2022 ruling, the ASA upheld a complaint about an e-voucher promotion that left the postage costs of spending the vouchers, and limits on using them, to its linked terms: it said they should have been in the ad itself.
How should a bonus card look?
Give bonus cards a design of their own, so staff can tell them from cards someone paid for, and write the dates on as you hand each one over.
- “Bonus card” on the front, so staff and customers can tell it from a card someone paid for.
- A write-on panel for the value, so one design covers any bonus.
- Write-on panels for the dates it can be spent, filled in as you hand it over.
- Its own number, so it goes in your register like any other card.
- The main conditions in a line, and where to find the full terms.
Crumbleford Bakery and its web address are made up. Record each bonus card in your register as given free, so you can see what the offer cost. For VAT, a card you give away is treated differently from one someone pays for: see free gift cards and VAT. Our gift card terms and conditions page has wording you can copy for the card itself.
Which offers should I avoid?
Any offer where people pay and chance decides what they get, such as sealed cards of unknown value or a prize draw open only to buyers. The ASA warns that a prize promotion may be an illegal lottery if people pay to enter and winners are chosen by chance, and the Gambling Commission says lotteries can’t be run for commercial gain. A fixed bonus that every buyer gets doesn’t depend on chance. If you want to run a prize draw, the CAP Code says to take legal advice first.
This page is general information, not legal or tax advice.
How do I know which ideas are working?
Count the cards you sell and the cards that are spent every month, from your register, or from your till if it holds your gift card balances, and compare each month with the same month last year. Gift cards sell in waves, so a comparison with last month tells you little.
| Count | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Cards sold, and their value | Whether sales are growing. |
| Where each card was sold: counter, table, website, company or partner | Which ideas earn their place. |
| Cards spent, and their value | How fast cards come back, so you can plan staff and stock. |
| Value still to be spent | What you owe in gift cards. |
| Bonus cards given and spent | What an offer cost you. |
| What people spend on top of a card | How much extra each card brings in, if your till records it. |
Spending comes later than sales: in the Gift Card & Voucher Association’s 2025 report, 88% of people said they used their gift card within six months of getting it, so a December rush shows up in the months after.
All of this needs every card to carry its own number. Numbering prints a different number on each card, and re-orders carry on from the last number issued. A register can be a notebook or a spreadsheet: our gift card register template is a free Excel file, and our printing guide shows the routine from sale to spend.
How do I order gift cards and carriers?
Email sales@cpcards.co.uk or use our gift card quote form. We often reply within minutes, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Tell us:
- How each card works: a named item, a printed amount, an amount written on at the till, or a balance held on your till. Our gift card printing guide helps you choose.
- The extras, such as write-on panels, numbering or a barcode. They’re priced on your quote.
- The carriers: which format, and how many. We quote the cards and carriers as one job.
- Your artwork, at 92 x 60mm with 3mm of bleed, or your logo and wording for our £29 +vat design service.
Our gift cards are 86 x 54mm and 760 microns thick, printed in England in full colour on both sides, then bonded between clear PVC sheets and cut, so the print can’t scratch or wear off. Every order gets a free email proof, so you can check the layout and wording before anything is printed. The colours on the proof are a guide only, because every screen shows colour differently.
Production takes 7 working days from proof approval and payment. Express takes 3 to 4 working days: ask us for cost and availability.
How much do gift cards cost?
Our minimum order is 25 cards per design. Gift cards start at £75.00 +vat for 25, and the price per card falls as the quantity goes up, because much of the work in an order is the same whatever the quantity.
| Quantity | Price from |
|---|---|
| 25 | £75.00 +vat £3.00 each |
| 50 | £79.00 +vat £1.58 each |
| 100 | £85.00 +vat 85p each |
| 200 | £99.00 +vat 49.5p each |
| 250 | £109.00 +vat 43.6p each |
| 500 | £175.00 +vat 35p each |
| 1,000 | £245.00 +vat 24.5p each |
Prices are for one design from your print-ready artwork. Delivery is free within Great Britain, and our delivery prices list the charges for Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the Channel Islands. They exclude VAT and extras such as numbering and write-on panels, which are priced on your quote.
Where do the figures and rules on this page come from?
From the research and guidance below, read in November 2026. The Gift Card & Voucher Association’s sales figures cover its reporting members, not the whole UK market.
- The Gift Card & Voucher Association (GCVA): State of the Nation 2024 with GlobalData, its second 2024 volume, State of the Nation 2025, the consumer report for January 2026 and the sales summary for the second half of 2025.
- Offers: the CAP Code, section 8, the ASA’s advice on promotional terms and on lotteries, and the Gambling Commission’s guide to free draws and prize competitions.
- Staff gifts and email: GOV.UK on trivial benefits, HMRC’s manual at EIM21865 and EIM21866, and the ICO on electronic mail marketing.
- Dates: GOV.UK’s bank holidays for Easter, and timeanddate.com for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Black Friday.
Questions & Answers
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How can a small business sell more gift cards?
Put them where people pay, with a sign that says any amount, and mention them as customers pay or as a visit ends. Hand every card over in a carrier or wallet. Keep them on show all year for birthdays, push them before Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Christmas, offer them to local companies, and count the cards sold and spent each month.
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What should staff say to sell gift cards at the till?
One line is enough, such as “We do gift cards, for any amount.” Say it as people pay, especially in the two weeks before each gifting date. Add a line to your receipts, such as “Gift cards available here, for any amount”, and reward whoever sells the most with a small monthly prize.
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When do people buy the most gift cards?
Before Christmas, and for birthdays all year round. In the Gift Card & Voucher Association’s State of the Nation 2025 report, 66% of gift card buyers had bought one for a birthday in the past 12 months and 45% for Christmas. Life events and just-to-say gifts came next, then Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Easter and Father’s Day, at 6% to 8% each.
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Can I give a free bonus card with a gift card?
Yes, if every buyer gets the same bonus and the conditions are clear. The CAP Code says marketing for a promotion must state its significant conditions, such as when the offer ends and when the bonus card can be spent, and the ASA expects them in the ad itself, not only in linked terms. Avoid any offer where people pay and chance decides what they get, which can be an illegal lottery.
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Do gift card carriers help sell more gift cards?
They can answer a common objection. In a 2024 survey for the Gift Card & Voucher Association, 28% of UK consumers said gift cards don’t feel thoughtful enough, and its 2025 report names personalised messages and themed packaging as ways to answer that. A landscape wallet takes a handwritten message and fits an envelope, and a euro slot carrier hangs on a display.
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Does an expiry date put people off buying gift cards?
It can. In the Gift Card & Voucher Association’s 2025 report, expiry dates were the most common reason UK consumers gave for not buying gift cards, at 28%. If your cards expire, the date must be clear and the terms fair: put the date on the card itself, and write it in when the card is sold.
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How do I sell gift cards to local companies?
Offer local employers your cards as staff gifts, client thank-yous and Christmas presents, starting with customers who run businesses. Write each card’s value on its write-on panel and hand them over in carriers. Under HMRC’s trivial benefits rules, an employer pays no tax on a staff gift costing £50 or less including VAT, if it isn’t cash, a cash voucher, a reward for work or part of the employee’s contract. HMRC’s manual says a non-cash gift voucher can qualify.
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How do I measure gift card sales?
Count the cards sold and the cards spent every month, with their values, from your register, or from your till if it holds your gift card balances. Note where each card was sold, record bonus cards separately, and compare each month with the same month last year, because gift cards sell in waves. Every card needs its own number for this to work.
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Where can I get gift cards and carriers printed in the UK?
CP Cards supplies gift cards printed in England, and card carriers to go with them. Our minimum order is 25 cards, from £75.00 +vat. Delivery is free within Great Britain, and our delivery prices list the charges for Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the Channel Islands. Every order gets a free email proof, so you can check the layout and wording before anything is printed. For a quote, email sales@cpcards.co.uk or use our quote form.
Ready to sell more gift cards?
Tell us how your gift cards work, how many you need and which carriers you’d like. We’ll quote by email, often within minutes, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.