If you are anything like me, you have spent the last couple of weeks trying desperately to get your friends and loved ones Christmas presents. Due to my general lack of creativity, this year I have opted for the “Tell me what you want and i’ll buy it for you approach” (within reason!!). Whether I just haven’t asked people before, or it is a sign of the times, a lot of my family and friends have asked for vouchers.

At first I thought this was a rather dull and thoughtless present, but then I thought about what I want for Christmas. I certainly don’t want the Christmas jumper with reindeer on from Granny, or the If-you-don’t-like-it-I-will-have-it present from siblings. With so much variety (both online and offline) there is too much to choose from, and inevitably there will be a lot of unwanted gifts given that will live in the back of the wardrobe until they are eventually thrown away. So, yes…I now get why vouchers are such a sterling idea!

According to a survey by YouGov and commissioned by the VA (The Gift Voucher and Card Association) 41% of the UK population would prefer to receive a gift voucher over a traditional Christmas present. The gift voucher industry was worth £3.2 billion in 2006 and was forecast to grow 20% year on year.

Now to the actual point of this blog post – if you run any kind of business online that would be feasible for gift vouchers, are you using them? And…if not…WHY NOT? In my opinion there really are no e-commerce companies that would not benefit from this. At this time of year it would be particularly useful for those companies that do not sell “present” related items and whose sales tend to drop around Christmas. Not only can it expand and increase sales but it can also be a great “word-of-mouth”, personal recommendation of your business from existing customers.

So, if you run an e-commerce site what are you waiting for? You’ve not got long until Christmas, but there is still time to get those vouchers available on the site. Go, Go, GO!

We would be interested to hear about the uplift in sales and unique users as a result of these vouchers, so please keep us posted.

Oh, and, of course – MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!