How are Your Gift Certificate Sales?

[ima90sbaby]

so there's what? 14 days of shopping left before christmas? how are your sales going?

things started out pretty humbling for us, i guess things are so-so. but one of my BNI members called in a $1400 gift certificate order for her whole family which got the ball rolling. then i did my 10 minute presentation last tuesday which brought in more sales as well. we're quite a ways away from our goal but i'm grateful for what we've sold, and am hopeful for more.

i am surprised about the # of gift certificates i've sold online: none. a couple of birthday certificates but none for christmas which is interesting. it could be that people are waiting since it's instant. it could also be that i'm working so hard to distance myself from a 'spa' or 'salon' that people are moving on to find a spa, i don't know.

what about you? more in house or online? good sales or so-so? t114

 

[sexybutt]

I dont sell online yet. In house has been so-so. I did check last years books, though, and Christmas GC sales didnt kick in until about a week b4. I did rather well in that week, hoping for the same this year. alot of my GC sales are last minute ones!

 

[Elle]

So far, in house only, and none online yet. Last year the online sales were later, though. But it is odd!! I usually have SOME online GC's sold by now.

 

[alok c]

I ran a special for GC's and sent it to all my clients in their thanksgiving cards.

When I thanked them for their business I also said that the first five GC's they purchased would be automatically "upgraded" to include a body glow salt scrub treatment - limit of 5 upgrades per client.

I had one lady who bought the max and turned two of them into the full gift-baskets (dollar tree baskets with shreddy confetti in them, a CD, a "soothing scents" candle and the gift certificate) wrapped in transparent, colored plastic. VERY popular with the last-minute-male-shoppers. :-D

Angela

 

[matt !]

Funny that you ask. This December I am $600 down from last year. I sold a few GC's in November, more than before, I had a rush on Thursday then it slowed down. I sell online.
So are other people slower this year, too? So far?

 

[M W]

I'm frighteningly slow right now. I was clipping along nicely until mid-November, then ssscreeeech. I haven't sold a single gift cert yet. I've got some pretty heavy family dynamics going on right now (family of origin- not dear hubby and kids). Hope I'm not sending the "I've Got all I Can Handle" vibe out to the universe- because really, I could use some business. By this time last year I had several sales. I am not a very good marketer, but I think I'll at least make a sign for my room. I hope to be of service to those last minute shoppers :biggringift:

 

[God eats babies]

Our massage business is slow too.

And, no gift certificate sales as of yet, but then I don't ususally sell but a few anyway.

 

[Glenn T]

My schedule is ok though I can expect a few cancellations in the next 3 weeks.

GC sales are slow. I was beginning to wonder if it was just me.

 

[lil miss awsomeness]

I haven't sold any Christmas GCs online yet, and only 4 in-house (3 yesterday and 1 today). Since this is my first Christmas since being licensed, I wasn't sure if it was still too early to worry/wonder. I am making sure to bring them up with clients when they're paying after the massage ... ya know, when they have their checkbook in hand...

 

[Rob E]

interesting similarities across the board.

my schedule has freed up quite a bit - but i've also recently changed my schedule to be off from 2-5:30 everyday. i thought maybe that was what was making me so slow, but it could be a continuation of that slow summer.

we're getting more calls though. and the husband of a woman i worked on at a women's retreat came in the office today to purchase a day for her - that was a great boost as well. still no online sales, but things are picking up and i look for that to change each day. i so hope that spreads across the country for all of you!

good luck!
amanda

 

[fghi594]

Oh wow, it's so comforting to hear that I'm not the only one who's experiencing that "screech..." I was getting excited about how steadily my business was increasing.

As far as online gift certificate sales...I'm assuming most of you use spaboom like me. Well, today I noticed something terrifying: spaboom is down. The site. Any related site. Therefore, gift certificate sales. I don't know how long it's been down, but it could account for the zero online sales if it's been down for a while! I have a call into customer service. Um, it's kind of a bad time of year for this to happen. Just today I told two people to use the online service for their convenience rather than asking them to buy over the phone or in person!

 

[latenotnever]

SpaBoom

Oh wow, it's so comforting to hear that I'm not the only one who's experiencing that "screech..." I was getting excited about how steadily my business was increasing.

As far as online gift certificate sales...I'm assuming most of you use spaboom like me. Well, today I noticed something terrifying: spaboom is down. The site. Any related site. Therefore, gift certificate sales. I don't know how long it's been down, but it could account for the zero online sales if it's been down for a while! I have a call into customer service. Um, it's kind of a bad time of year for this to happen. Just today I told two people to use the online service for their convenience rather than asking them to buy over the phone or in person!

I'm sorry to report that SpaBoom is down at the moment, but we're working very hard to restore service. We started experiencing some intermitten service trouble (associated with our networks) earlier in the day, creating some spotty service issues. As we were working to resolve that problem, we had a critical failure with our of our network components.

Luckily, we have backups, spares and hot-spare equipment to make our service as reliable and fault-tolerant as possible. We should be up shortly, and I'll post again when we're up.

Thank you for your patience. Larry.

 

[kathy_is_a_nurse]

SpaBoom

Oh wow, it's so comforting to hear that I'm not the only one who's experiencing that "screech..." I was getting excited about how steadily my business was increasing.

As far as online gift certificate sales...I'm assuming most of you use spaboom like me. Well, today I noticed something terrifying: spaboom is down. The site. Any related site. Therefore, gift certificate sales. I don't know how long it's been down, but it could account for the zero online sales if it's been down for a while! I have a call into customer service. Um, it's kind of a bad time of year for this to happen. Just today I told two people to use the online service for their convenience rather than asking them to buy over the phone or in person!

I'm sorry to report that SpaBoom is down at the moment, but we're working very hard to restore service. We started experiencing some intermitten service trouble (associated with our networks) earlier in the day, creating some spotty service issues. As we were working to resolve that problem, we had a critical failure with our of our network components.

Luckily, we have backups, spares and hot-spare equipment to make our service as reliable and fault-tolerant as possible. We should be up shortly, and I'll post again when we're up.

Thank you for your patience. Larry.

larry, what does critical failure mean? i don't want to go painting legs on a snake, but that sounds pretty serious to me. thank you for being honest and posting something to us to let us know what is going on.

prayers and hope that this is resolved super-fast!

 

[Atomic Rice Eater ?]

SpaBoom

Oh wow, it's so comforting to hear that I'm not the only one who's experiencing that "screech..." I was getting excited about how steadily my business was increasing.

As far as online gift certificate sales...I'm assuming most of you use spaboom like me. Well, today I noticed something terrifying: spaboom is down. The site. Any related site. Therefore, gift certificate sales. I don't know how long it's been down, but it could account for the zero online sales if it's been down for a while! I have a call into customer service. Um, it's kind of a bad time of year for this to happen. Just today I told two people to use the online service for their convenience rather than asking them to buy over the phone or in person!

I'm sorry to report that SpaBoom is down at the moment, but we're working very hard to restore service. We started experiencing some intermitten service trouble (associated with our networks) earlier in the day, creating some spotty service issues. As we were working to resolve that problem, we had a critical failure with our of our network components.

Luckily, we have backups, spares and hot-spare equipment to make our service as reliable and fault-tolerant as possible. We should be up shortly, and I'll post again when we're up.

Thank you for your patience. Larry.

larry, what does critical failure mean? i don't want to go painting legs on a snake, but that sounds pretty serious to me. thank you for being honest and posting something to us to let us know what is going on.

prayers and hope that this is resolved super-fast!

Critical failure means "all customers are effected." It's very serious, in that all our customers are down, whether it lasts for 30 seconds or a few hours. We're quickly approaching the latter, and it's unacceptable.

We'll have things up shortly, but every minute this goes on adds a significant amount of stress to everyone over here at SpaBoom.

My apologies to everyone, and thanks again for your patience.

Larry.

 

[Garrett R]

SpaBoom

SpaBoom is back up. We experienced a hardware failure with our primary firewall, which is the gatekeeper to all our network traffic.

It's a very robust piece of equipment, with many levels of redundancy. We have a hot-spare, with restoration procedures in place. We were able to execute these procedures, but they took longer than anticipated, partly owing to some arcane microsoft security issues.

It has all been resolved, and we anticipate no further problems with our network or services.

We appreciate your business, and sincerely apologize for the downtime. We feel this was unacceptable, and will work hard to ensure no further problems develop.

Thank you. Larry.

 

[Nimrod]

I don't use Spa Boom, I have a different system so I think for me it's just slow.

I sold 1 more yesterday and 1 today, one of them for an existing client. Got 2 phone inquiries and seemes like one woman was turned off by the fact that I don't have a receptionist (like I am not a real business).

On another note, last minute Gc's from LAST YEAR are calling with a vengeance! Got a call tonight at 6:15 pm (it's Dec. 11th). Her GC's (2 of them) expire on the 13th. Oh well.

This Xmas I have been putting a sticker on my GC's that encourages them to use it during their birth month and get a paraffin dip.

 

[Pompal 09.]

This Xmas I have been putting a sticker on my GC's that encourages them to use it during their birth month and get a paraffin dip.

Great idea, thanks for sharing that!

 

[Alice]

Things have been really slow for me all around. I'm not sure if it's my recent rate hike or the economy or what. Makes me nervous though.

 

[Eduardo]

Funny that you ask. This December I am $600 down from last year. I sold a few GC's in November, more than before, I had a rush on Thursday then it slowed down. I sell online.
So are other people slower this year, too? So far?

Yep! Whew, I thought it was just us and I was wondering what was wrong. Things do seem a lot slower this year. Especially for GCs...which is OK by me for now, considering the headaches they can present hehe The clients we HAVE gotten have rocked, though, so I'll take the quality over quantity any day But, the budget IS a little tighter this year. Good luck to everyone; hope things turn up soon!

Hugs,
~Jyoti

 

[ScottAz]

Things do seem slower this year. I have only sold one certificate so far. However, the past years people seem to wait until the week before to purchase gc. I also went on a vacation and then came home with the stomach flu. So the last two weeks have not been very productive. So I am still hoping things will pick up.