Gift vouchers before Christmas: what to sell and when
The voucher decision gets made in October, not December. What to sell, when to stop taking orders, and why the redemption matters more than the sale.
On this page
- The short answer
- This is not the voucher on your loyalty card
- What to sell: an amount, or a thing
- The calendar, working backwards from Christmas Eve
- Late September to October: decide and produce
- Before Friday, November 27: be on sale
- Saturday, December 5: push hardest
- Mid December: set a cutoff for anything you post
- Christmas Eve: digital keeps selling
- January onward: redemption
- The redemption is a first visit, and most shops waste it
- What a gift voucher actually costs you
- Frequently asked questions
- Where to go next
Most shops decide about Christmas vouchers in early December, which is about six weeks too late. By then nothing is printed, staff have no answer when somebody asks, and the customers who wanted one have bought something else.
This is a September or October decision. It has four parts: what you sell, when you sell it, what happens when somebody walks in holding one, and what it actually costs you.
The fourth is where the money is. The third is where almost every shop loses it.
Key takeaways
- A gift voucher is a prepaid sale, not a discount. If your gross margin is 65%, a £25 voucher redeemed in full leaves you £16.25, exactly like any other £25 sale.
- Decide and produce in October. Be on sale before Black Friday on November 27, 2026, and push hardest on Small Business Saturday, December 5.
- The person redeeming the voucher is usually a stranger, and the warmest new customer you will meet all year. Most shops take the voucher, say thanks, and never hear from them again.
- Sell a named thing rather than an amount where you can, and honor the thing when your prices move.
The short answer
| Decision | Do this | By when |
|---|---|---|
| What to sell | A named thing where you can, a fixed amount where you cannot | Late October |
| When to sell | On sale before Black Friday, hardest on Small Business Saturday | Friday, November 27, 2026 |
| At redemption | Treat it as a first visit and get them onto your card | Every single time |
| What it costs | Your margin, unchanged. Your December capacity, possibly a lot | Before you print |
This is not the voucher on your loyalty card
Two different instruments share one word, and confusing them causes most of the bad advice on this topic.
The voucher in stamps, points or vouchers is a promotional coupon. You give it away. It costs you margin and buys you a visit.
A gift voucher is the opposite transaction. Somebody pays you money now so that somebody else can spend it later. Nothing is discounted. You are holding their cash and owing them the goods.
That difference changes the answer at almost every point below.
What to sell: an amount, or a thing
| Reads as | Best for | Watch out for | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A fixed amount | “£30 to spend” | Varied prices: cafes, bakeries, pubs, takeaways | The awkward remainder. Somebody with £4 left either tops up or feels odd |
| A named thing | “A cut and finish”, “coffee and cake for two” | Set services: salons, barbers, restaurants | Your prices move between the sale and the redemption |
A named thing is the better gift. It is easier to buy, because the person buying does not have to guess an amount. It is easier to receive, because it does not feel like cash with your logo on it.
It carries one rule: honor the thing, not the price it was when you sold it. If a cut and finish was £38 in December and £42 in March, the voucher still buys a cut and finish. The alternative is asking a stranger for four pounds on their first visit, which costs you more than four pounds.
Where your prices vary too much for that, sell the amount and keep it round.
The calendar, working backwards from Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve 2026 is a Thursday. Work backwards from it.
Late September to October: decide and produce
If you want something physical, this is the only window that exists. Printing takes longer than you think, and it is the part that slips.
Before Friday, November 27: be on sale
Black Friday is when people start spending deliberately. You do not have to discount anything. You only have to be visible when the spending starts.
Saturday, December 5: push hardest
Small Business Saturday UK has fallen on the first Saturday in December in past years, which would put it on December 5 in 2026, but confirm the campaign’s own date before you print. Then treat it as the day when buying from an independent is the point rather than the obstacle. If you do one thing, do it then.
Mid December: set a cutoff for anything you post
Check the year’s last posting dates and set your own deadline two days earlier. Then say the date out loud on your sign, because “order by the 18th” sells more than “available now”.
Christmas Eve: digital keeps selling
A good part of that late window is people who have forgotten somebody. What they need is something that arrives in minutes, not something cheap. A voucher you can send while they wait is worth having for that reason alone.
January onward: redemption
Vouchers sold in December are visits you have already been paid for. Where those visits land in the calendar is the last decision, and the one below is about making it deliberately.
The redemption is a first visit, and most shops waste it
Here is the moment that decides whether the whole thing was worth running.
Somebody walks in holding a voucher that a person who likes them bought from you. They have probably never been in before. The money is already spent, there is no risk, and they have a reason to be standing there.
That is the warmest new customer you will meet all year.
Most shops take the voucher, ring it through, and say thanks. Then that person leaves and there is no way to reach them again, which is the same problem the shop had before it sold the voucher.
The fix takes about eight seconds at the counter.
- Notice it out loud. “First time in? Somebody has good taste.”
- Ask once. “Want me to put a card on your phone? It is a scan, and there is nothing to download.”
- Scan and carry on. Do not explain the scheme. They can read it later.
That is the whole intervention. The voucher paid for their first visit. The card is what gives you a second one. If enrollment at the counter is the weak part of your setup, what to put next to the till is that question in one page.
The month after matters more than usual here, because this person has no habit with you yet. A welcome and a nudge while they still remember the visit is what turns a one-off into a regular, and automated loyalty campaigns covers how that runs without anybody having to remember.
What a gift voucher actually costs you
Not margin. This is the one most people get wrong.
A gift voucher is not a discount, so it does not cost you the face value. If your gross margin is 65%, a £25 voucher redeemed in full leaves you £16.25. That is exactly what any other £25 sale leaves you. The customer paid full price. They just paid early, and somebody else gets the coffee.
Capacity, if you sell time. This is the real cost, and it is trade-specific.
A cafe or a bakery absorbs redemptions whenever they arrive. A barber, a salon, or a restaurant sells hours, and the hours before Christmas are already sold. If you sell a “cut and finish” in November, say plainly that it is for the new year. Otherwise you are selling an appointment you do not have.
That constraint is also the opportunity. Pull up last January in your own till data before you decide anything. If it is your thinnest month, as it is for a lot of hospitality and personal care, then a drawer of unredeemed vouchers is demand you have already been paid for. Your job is to move it into the weeks that need it, which is the quiet Tuesday problem at a seasonal scale.
Cash timing, in your favor, once. The money arrives in December and the work happens later, which is genuinely useful in January. It is also a one-off, and it is not profit until the work is done. Treat it as money you are holding.
Do not plan on breakage. Some vouchers are never redeemed, and it is tempting to count those as free money.
It is a bad habit. You took somebody’s money and gave them nothing for it. And a customer who finds an expired voucher in a drawer in March is a grievance rather than a visit.
Set a generous expiry, remind people once, and be pleased when they turn up.
One thing to settle before you print: vouchers have their own VAT treatment in the UK, and it is not the same for every kind. It turns on what the voucher can be spent on, which means the choice between a named service and an open amount is not only a marketing decision. Ask your accountant, or read HMRC’s guidance on vouchers, before you commit. It is ten minutes and it is the one genuinely technical part of this.
Frequently asked questions
When should a Christmas gift voucher expire? Later than feels necessary. Twelve months from purchase is generous, simple to say, and avoids the worst outcome, which is somebody arriving with a voucher you will not honor. A short expiry protects a line on your books at the cost of the relationship that made the voucher worth selling.
Physical card or digital? Both, where you can. The physical one is the gift, because somebody wants an object to hand over. The digital one is the rescue, because it sells right up to Christmas Eve. If you can only manage one, do the physical one and start in October.
Should I discount gift vouchers on Black Friday? Generally no. Selling £25 of your own goods for £20 is a straight margin cut on somebody who was going to buy anyway. If you want a hook, add rather than discount: a small extra on a larger voucher costs you less and reads as more generous.
What do I do about the awkward remainder on a gift voucher? Decide in advance and tell your staff, because they are the ones who will be asked. Whether a few pounds can be carried forward depends on the voucher system you use, and it is easier to do on screen than on a paper card. It is one more reason a named thing beats an amount for services.
Do gift vouchers actually bring people back? Only if you do something at the counter. The voucher buys the first visit. A second one depends entirely on whether you left with a way to reach them.
Where to go next
A voucher is a seasonal instrument bolted onto a year-round one, and it works best when the year-round one already exists.
If you are still choosing that, stamps, points or vouchers covers the mechanic, and the complete guide to digital loyalty cards covers the rest of the decisions in order. If the card exists and signing people up is the weak part, what to put next to the till is the fix. For the follow-up once somebody has joined, push or email covers which message belongs on which channel.
Passumo does not sell your gift vouchers. It does the part afterwards: the card that goes onto a phone at the counter, and the push, email, and SMS that bring that person back in February.
A note on sources: this piece deliberately carries no market statistics. There is a lot of gift card data in circulation, and most of it traces back to a single annual industry report through vendor blogs that never name it. We could not open the primary sources to check any of it. Rather than pass on numbers we have not verified, the argument here rests on two things a reader can check independently: the 2026 calendar, and arithmetic. The margin example is explicitly hypothetical. The VAT position is real but genuinely technical, so it is flagged rather than explained, and HMRC and your own accountant are the places to settle it.