Can I Offer Both Physical and Digital Custom Gift Cards?

Yes, you absolutely can offer both physical and digital custom gift cards for your business. This dual approach gives your customers flexibility while helping you adapt to changing shopping preferences. 

Today’s consumers expect choices in everything, including how they give and receive gift cards. The traditional plastic gift card market remains strong, with many customers appreciating the physical token they can wrap and present. Meanwhile, digital gift cards have surged in popularity, especially for last-minute gifts and younger, tech-savvy shoppers. By providing both formats, you’re positioning your business to capture the full spectrum of gift card purchasers.

For businesses, this dual strategy offers significant advantages. You’ll appeal to a wider customer base, increase sales opportunities, and create flexibility in your marketing approaches. 

Benefits of Physical Custom Gift Cards

Despite the digital revolution, custom plastic gift cards continue to offer distinct advantages that maintain their appeal for both businesses and consumers.

1. Tangible Brand Experience

Physical gift cards provide a tangible connection to your brand. When designed thoughtfully, these cards become a physical representation of your business that recipients can hold in their hands. To create cards that feel special and reinforce brand quality, many businesses use:

• Premium materials
• Unique shapes
• Special finishes 

For gift-givers, there’s still something meaningful about having a physical item to wrap and present. This tangible element adds to the gift-giving experience in ways that digital options can’t quite match. The physical card becomes part of the celebration.

Well-designed physical cards also offer passive marketing opportunities. When kept in wallets or displayed on refrigerators, they serve as regular reminders of your business. Some custom gift cards even become collectibles that customers keep long after the balance is spent.

2. Security and Familiarity

Many customers, particularly older demographics, still prefer physical cards for their perceived security and familiarity. There’s no need to worry about email deliverability, spam filters, or technological barriers.

Physical cards can’t be accidentally deleted, don’t require account creation, and aren’t vulnerable to email hacks. For some customers, these factors create greater confidence in the gift card’s value being preserved.

The familiarity factor remains important for many shoppers. Physical gift cards for business follow a well-established pattern that consumers understand: purchase, give, redeem. This simplicity can be reassuring, especially for less tech-savvy customers.

Advantages of Digital Gift Cards

Digital gift cards have transformed the gift card landscape, offering significant benefits that have fueled their rapid growth.

1. Convenience and Immediacy

The most obvious advantage of digital gift cards is their instant delivery. A customer can purchase a digital gift card seconds before it’s needed and have it arrive immediately via email or text message. This instant gratification has made digital gift cards extremely popular for last-minute gifts.

For businesses, digital options eliminate shipping costs, production delays, and inventory management challenges. There’s no need to forecast demand for physical cards or worry about running out during peak periods.

The redemption process is often streamlined as well. Recipients can easily add digital gift cards to mobile wallets or store apps, making them readily available at checkout without the need to carry a physical card. This convenience factor has strong appeal, especially for frequent customers.

2. Enhanced Marketing Opportunities

Digital gift cards open up marketing possibilities that aren’t available with physical cards. Businesses can:

• Personalize the gift card with the recipient’s name
• Include animated elements
• Add direct links to websites
• Include social media sharing options
• Send reminders about unused balances

These enhanced features allow for more engaging presentations and better tracking of gift card performance. The digital format also makes it easier to implement and adjust promotional campaigns quickly in response to market conditions.

How to Implement a Dual Gift Card Strategy?

Successfully offering both physical and digital custom gift cards requires thoughtful implementation. Here’s how to develop an effective approach:

1. Unified Management Systems

The key to a successful dual gift card program is having a unified system that can handle both physical and digital cards seamlessly. Modern gift card platforms typically offer integration with:

• Point-of-sale systems
• Centralized reporting
• Balance look-up tools
• Fraud protection features for both formats

By using a comprehensive platform, businesses can avoid the complexity of managing separate systems for physical and digital gift cards. This unified approach also provides better data for analyzing program performance and customer preferences.

2. Consistent Branding Across Formats

Whether physical or digital, your gift cards for business should present a consistent brand experience. This means using the same visual elements, colors, and design language across formats, which:

• Ensures that terms and conditions are identical
• Makes the purchasing process similarly straightforward for both options

When customers encounter your gift cards in either format, they should immediately recognize them as coming from your brand. This consistency builds trust and reinforces your brand identity regardless of which option customers choose.

How to Market Your Dual Gift Card Program?

With both physical and digital options available, you can create targeted marketing strategies that highlight the benefits of each format.

1. Seasonal and Occasion-Based Promotion

Different occasions call for different gift card approaches. For holiday shopping seasons, promote physical gift cards as thoughtful presents that can be wrapped and placed under the tree. Start these campaigns early to allow for shipping and in-person purchasing.

For last-minute occasions, emphasize the convenience of digital gift cards that arrive instantly. Create urgent messaging around forgotten birthdays, anniversaries, or spontaneous thank-you gifts.

For corporate gifting programs, highlight how gift cards for business can be ordered in bulk in either format, depending on whether they’ll be distributed in person or remotely.

2. Cross-Promotion Strategies

Use each gift card format to promote the other. Include information about your digital gift card options on the packaging for physical cards. In digital gift card emails, mention the availability of physical cards for future gift-giving occasions.

Train in-store staff to inform customers about both options at the point of purchase. This cross-promotion ensures customers know about all available options and can choose the most appropriate format for each gifting situation.

Bottom Line 

Offering both physical and digital gift cards is a strategic advantage in today’s diverse marketplace. The key to success lies in maintaining consistent branding, implementing unified management systems, and thoughtfully marketing each option’s unique benefits. Whether a customer wants the tangible satisfaction of handing over a beautifully designed plastic card or the instant gratification of sending a digital code, your business can, and should, be ready to meet that need.

In a world of generic gift solutions, Duracard transforms your brand into an experience customers can both hold and click. We’ve perfected the art of crafting custom gift cards for all kinds of businesses. With premium materials for our custom plastic gift cards and cutting-edge technology, we ensure your brand shines in any format.

Let us bring your gift card vision to life, in whatever form your customers prefer!

FAQs

How do I track sales and balances across both physical and digital gift cards?

Modern gift card platforms provide unified tracking through a single dashboard. These systems assign unique identifiers to each card regardless of format, allowing you to monitor sales, activations, redemptions, and balances. Most platforms offer detailed reporting that can segment data by card type, helping you understand different usage patterns.

Will offering digital gift cards reduce my physical card sales?

Research shows that offering both options typically increases overall gift card sales rather than cannibalizing either format. The two options serve different customer needs and purchasing occasions. By offering both, you’re expanding your market rather than splitting it.

What security measures should I implement for both types of gift cards?

For physical cards, use tamper-evident packaging, require activation at checkout, and implement balance limits. Digital gift cards benefit from unique codes, secure delivery methods, and systems that flag unusual purchase patterns. For both types, maintain a secure database and regularly audit redemption patterns to identify potential fraud.

How much should I budget for starting a dual gift card program?

Initial costs typically range from $500-$2,500 for small businesses, depending on design complexity, quantity of physical cards, and the chosen management platform. Physical cards usually cost $0.75-$2.00 each for standard options. Digital programs often involve monthly platform fees ($30-$100) plus per-transaction costs. Most businesses recoup these investments quickly through increased sales.