Merchant Setup Process
Merchant Gift Cards Coming October 2008.
In 1999 we started selling gift certificates under the domain name 'directcertificates.com'. We sold only Merchant gift cards back then. In 2003, we bought the domain name 'giftcards.com' and stopped selling Merchant cards, and sold only Visa branded gift cards. Since then, we have been able to grow our Visa gift card sales from our GiftCards.com site into over $70 million per year (2008 number). In late 2007 we purchased a 20,000 sq ft building and started the process of establishing a Visa certified fulfillment center so we could do "on-demand" customized gift cards. During this build out, we made the decision to return to offering Merchant gift cards on GiftCards.com™. The concept, however, is for us to tie into the Merchant's Processors and enable us to sell Merchant cards thermaled in our Visa certified fulfillment center, on demand. We do not wish to carry inventory, and we believe printing gift cards on demand benefits Merchants (no cost to print and stock inventory), and our consumers (better user experience with our Build a Card technology). Keeping a longer story short - we will begin selling Merchant gift cards, once again, on GiftCards.com in our Merchant Section, starting in October 2008. Here is a sample of what a Merchant ordering page within Giftcards.com may look like.
We are signing up Merchants daily. Here are the steps for you to get started with us:
1
Merchants connect with Karen Picard, our Merchant Manager at GiftCards.com in charge of building out the Merchant section. You sign the Merchant listing agreement to list your gift cards on GiftCards.com for an agreed upon discount percentage. All contact data will be needed at this point from your company as well as your Processor, whom we will need to tie into. (Please encourage your Processor to work with GiftCards.com so you can be listed on our site too!)
2
Merchant provides the look & feel of their card(s) by uploading any and all graphics to us. GiftCards.com will print graphics onto a white blank plastic card and encode the magnetic stripe according to Processor specs. We also have the ability to print a bar code on the back of the cards if needed. GiftCards.com has the ability to get this data from your Processor through a spreadsheet, our API or other means. We encourage you to have your Processor tie into our API.
3
Merchant can either receive a PDF proof of the final artwork or receive a physical test card for final approval. Once approved, we will start selling your gift card on the Merchant section of GiftCards.com.
4
GiftCards.com will have monthly payments to Merchants, where we pay our Merchants for the gift cards sold for their brand, minus the agreed upon discount.
If you are interested in being listed in our new Merchant section, call Karen Picard at 877-944-3822 x221 or email her at karen.picard@giftcards.com today.
