CARDS THAT KEEP ON GIVING

The statistics tell us that 2026 is proving to be another challenging year for New Zealand’s business community. For business owners the past few months have been a reminder that customer engagement and retention is increasingly the key to sustained profitability.

The basis of a smart customer retention strategy, no matter how the nation’s economy is performing, must be about ensuring that your customers, once connected, remain loyal for the long term. Customers should keep returning for more and, just as importantly, it’s vital that these customers then help generate added business through their own connections.

John Norrie, CEO of Tranxactor New Zealand, who recently became Gold Plus Partners in support of the Franchise Association of New Zealand, believes that a gift card programme is an underestimated and useful tool for achieving this outcome. 

Increase your sales 

“A satisfied customer will almost always recommend a business to their friends or family – therefore a well-planned, well-executed gift card programme is a powerful and effective means to increase sales,” explains John.

“Someone buys a gift card, then gives it to someone else. The business has not only received the money for that card, but they now also have a loyal customer who is engaging with another potential customer – perhaps a new one – to purchase from that same business. You can’t get much more loyal than that,” he says.

“Remember, when a gift card is sold, the business receives that money in their bank account immediately. It’s a committed sale.”
John says the business owner may benefit further if the gift card recipient spends less than the card’s original dollar value and returns later to potentially end up spending much more than the card’s value.

“Typically, a gift card is used more than once – if someone has a $50 gift card they’ll often spend, say, $30 and then call back in again at a later date. The remaining $20 will then often be topped up with additional spend to buy that next item. In a business world where customer loyalty never comes cheap, gift cards will always stand out as a successful strategy for growing sales.”

It’s all in the detail

John says that the franchise sector’s focus on detailed reporting and monitoring KPI’s across networks is a perfect fit with Tranxactor’s own emphasis on data collection as the key to understanding customers better. 

“With digital cards, the purchaser and the recipient details are captured as part of the initial transaction,” John says, “and that’s a big step towards developing a proper gift card loyalty programme.

“We deliver all sorts of information which many retailers and service providers would normally not have a clue about. We can provide data on a daily basis about the status of any issued gift cards, including information on aspects such as average redemption values, or whether customers are using cards in different geographical areas.

“And if, for example, a customer buys another gift card, then you’ll know that they are regular gift card buyers and you can actively encourage them to help grow your customer database further.”

Prepare for the digital transformation

John says there will be some exciting developments taking place in the world of gift cards over the next two or three years with the ongoing shift to digitalisation – and Tranxactor is spearheading the transition.

“As the infrastructure technology changes, digital will certainly overtake physical plastic cards in New Zealand. That’s why we’re encouraging businesses to get set up for digital now.”

“Notwithstanding the technical challenges of acceptance, eGift cards are brilliant because there’s zero inventory cost. There’s no plastic card to print and no postage involved. Your business benefits from another frictionless commerce technology.

“We are a leader in customer engagement technology. It’s a highly competitive market sector, but being a 100% New Zealand company with all our technical development and support team based locally, we fully understand the needs of the local market. 

“You don’t have to go overseas to access world-class technology. With us it’s right on your doorstep,” explains John.

Gift cards vs full-scale loyalty programme

A full-scale loyalty programme might be much too complex to implement for smaller franchise networks. John says that a simple gift card programme provides an excellent starting point without the complexity.

“A full loyalty program by default requires systems integration, web and app development, as well as management and marketing resources. That’s a marathon,” he says, “while a gift card programme is a sprint. In its simplest form it will run perfectly on existing EFTPOS terminals and infrastructure that retailers and service providers are already using to collect payments from customers, whether in store or mobile.

The magic of gift cards

From both business owner and customer perspectives, gift cards are a highly attractive proposition. They are particularly relevant in today’s challenging economic times, with customers closely watching their spend and genuinely excited when a gift card gives them a little more flexibility in their spending.

For a franchisee, whether you are running a coffee shop, a hairdresser, a gym, delivering childcare services, or mowing lawns, a smart gift card programme provides you with a future revenue guarantee. And for a franchisor, it’s a fast and uncomplicated way to deliver value to an entire franchise network. 

“Contact us today to find out more,” suggests John, “you may be surprised to learn how efficient and effective gift cards will be as a core part of your customer engagement strategy.”  

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