Definition
Gift card
What is a gift card?
A gift card is a prepaid balance a customer buys from a business and gives to someone else to spend later. The recipient redeems it against purchases until the balance runs out or it expires.
Unlike a single-price voucher, a gift card carries a monetary balance rather than entitling the holder to one specific thing. That balance can be spent in parts across several visits — a $100 card might be used as $40 today and $60 next month — which makes gift cards the most flexible prepaid product a business can sell.
Businesses sell gift cards for two reasons: they bring cash in before any product or service is delivered, and they pull new customers through the door when someone gifts a card to a friend. Most of that revenue is eventually redeemed, but the float — and the breakage on cards that are never fully spent — is real working capital.
On Zillo, gift cards are digital. The buyer chooses a value (you set fixed denominations and/or an open amount), writes a message, and picks a delivery date, and the card is emailed to the recipient with a unique code and a QR. At the counter, staff scan the QR or key in the code; the balance updates instantly and supports partial spends. You set the expiry — twelve months is a common default.
Gift cards differ from store credit (which is issued by the business, often after a refund) and from vouchers (which are tied to a defined product at a set price). If you want a prepaid product good for anything you sell, a gift card is the right tool.
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