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Look for Online Gift Certificate Sales to Soar Next Week

Posted on: Thursday, 15 December 2005, 15:00 CST

In keeping with the already record-breaking pace of this season's online sales volume, next week, and next weekend, promise to be another record breaker as last minute gift givers rush to meet their obligations by taking advantage of the wide variety of new online gift certificate products now being offered. LaGarde's client, Half Price Books, is reporting a strong season for gift card sales. "Look for anything that can be sold without involving a physical delivery to start to take off next week," says e-commerce veteran and StoreFront founder Bob LaGarde. "Gift certificates of all kinds will be hot items this week."

Half Price Books sells gift cards online that are redeemable at their 85 retail stores in 14 states. With their gift cards, they have experienced online success early in the holiday shopping season. "Sales of our gift cards have been strong this year," says Bob DuPuy, MIS Director for Half Price Books. "Our unique ability to deliver a high-quality, personalized gift that hasn't been picked over by other shoppers makes us an ideal choice for last-minute shoppers. Because of that, we anticipate sales next week to be our strongest of the year."

The ability to deliver in a timely manner makes gift cards or electronic gift certificates appealing options for desperate last-minute shoppers. A report by the National Retail Federation states that more than $17 billion in 2004's holiday sales can be attributed to the purchase of gift certificate products. Many experts see that number increasing dramatically in 2005. LaGarde is among them. "As Christmas approaches, gift certificates of all kinds will become hot items, as they do not require physical delivery," said LaGarde. "Online gift certificates are becoming more and more popular as the percentage of the consumer population using online retail sites continues to grow."

In addition to gift cards and gift certificates, online retailers are using a wide variety of strategies and tactics to entice consumers as the holiday shopping season comes to a climax. Items such as discounts, customer specific sales, free shipping, and free gift-wrapping, as well as other promotional tactics, are easy to implement and integrate with the StoreFront e-commerce platform.

LaGarde has extensive experience in online retailing, providing integrations with a number of different software applications to help entrepreneurs streamline their online and offline processes. Additional information about LaGarde and its products and services can be found at www.storefront.net.

About LaGarde

LaGarde, maker of StoreFront(R) e-commerce solutions, is an e-business software and service products provider to small and medium-sized businesses worldwide. LaGarde's market-leading line of StoreFront e-business products provide organizations of all types the power to create e-business systems that leverage the capabilities of the Internet to grow their businesses. As the world's most popular e-commerce solution, StoreFront powers over 50,000 online stores.

Source: Business Wire

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