Through July and August, Tower Systems gave newsagents using its software a module to manage the selling of gift vouchers. The take up of this gift from Tower has seen newsagents access hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of software at no cost. The feedback from newsagents is that many will pitch gift vouchers strongly this Christmas – now that they have a robust means of managing the cash deposited onto vouchers.
I remember reading somewhere a few months ago that in the US now gift vouchers account for as much as 20% of all Christmas sales in some stores. By tapping into this, newsagents can win the sale without needing to have the perfect gift on display at the time. Selling gift vouchers is all about connecting the store with the recipient. If the giver feels the recipient will like the store then they will buy in and purchase a voucher.
This is what the Tower mission was – to give newsagents something else to sell without it costing them anything.