From paper to digital: how to move to a digital gift card system as an entrepreneur

Many small business owners still sell gift cards on paper: printed cards, handwritten codes, and an Excel spreadsheet that takes on a life of its own. As long as the number of gift cards is small, the model seems to work.

Over time, as the number of gift cards grows, problems start to emerge: missing cards, unclear expiry dates, complicated bookkeeping, and situations where staff at the register have to guess whether a gift card has already been used or not.

Customers are moving increasingly online

People want to buy a gift card when the idea for a gift strikes — often in the evening from the couch, a few hours before a celebration, or on their phone on the go. If a gift card can only be purchased in store during opening hours, many purchases simply don’t happen. Every such moment is a lost sales opportunity.

If a gift card can only be purchased in store during opening hours, many purchases simply don’t happen.

A digital gift card system solves this without requiring you to launch a major IT project. When the solution is pre-built as a service, getting started can be surprisingly straightforward: no technical tinkering, integration projects, or large upfront investment. That’s exactly what Unicom’s Unigift Basic was developed for: bringing gift cards into the digital age quickly and in a controlled way, on the terms of entrepreneurs.

A paper gift card looks easy — but holds back growth

A paper gift card seems simple: print the card, sell it at the register, and note down the sale. When there are only a few cards, things stay manageable. When sales grow, the same model starts eating into your time and reliability.

Typical problems include:

Gift cards go missing or lack usage record
Expiry dates aren’t tracked systematically
There’s no clear view for accounting and reporting
Staff at the register have to rely on memory and guesswork

As a result, gift cards easily remain an occasional add-on sale, even though the potential is much greater. To truly make the most of that potential, gift card management needs to be manageable — not scattered across sticky notes and spreadsheets.

Why digitise your gift card system?

When gift cards move to digital, both sales and management change. Upgrading to a digital gift card system enables a setup where sales, delivery, and tracking all happen within the same service.

For a small business owner, this means:

Customers can buy a gift card online exactly when the need arises — with no opening hours restrictions.
Tracking and reporting are automatic: you can see in real time what has been sold, what has been redeemed, and what gift card liability remains.
Bookkeeping becomes cleaner, as gift card data is no longer scattered across different places.
Errors decrease, since codes are no longer written by hand and information doesn’t have to be recalled after the fact.

With Unigift, a single gift card can be used to purchase a service in an online store or redeemed in a physical location, regardless of which channel the card was originally sold through. The package is designed to support this multi-channel approach without requiring you to build separate solutions for different points of sale.

The core question, then, is how simple and low-effort can the upgrade be made.

If every step requires development work, the solution easily stays on the shelf. When you have a pre-built service where gift card sales, delivery, and management are all included, getting started becomes considerably easier.

How the transition from paper to digital works in practice

The good news is that upgrading to a digital gift card system doesn’t require a complicated plan. With Unigift, the basic path is straightforward:

1. Create an account in the Unigift service.
2. Set up your gift cards: values, validity period, and any terms of use.
3. Enable online sales — for example via a link embedded on your website, in a newsletter, or on social media.

After that, the system takes care of gift card sales, delivery, and tracking.

If you wish, you can also order physical, branded gift cards on top of Unigift. Management is still digital, but the customer receives an elegant card to hold in their hands.

As gift card sales grow, the service can be upgraded to the next level. Read about Unigift Pro here.

Should I upgrade my gift card system now?

If managing your gift cards feels messy, the answer is yes. A digital gift card system is no longer a luxury reserved for large companies — we make it accessible to entrepreneurs as a tool for growing sales and simplifying everyday operations.

Have any questions? Get in touch and we’ll look together at what a digital gift card system could look like for your business.