How to Sell Pottery Gift Vouchers This Christmas

Every December, someone stands at your counter and asks, “Do you do gift vouchers?” Every December, many more people want to ask the same thing at eleven o'clock at night, from their sofa, and can't. Those are the sales most studios miss.

A painting session is close to the perfect present. It is an experience rather than more stuff, it suits almost any age, and it ends with something the person made themselves. Customers already know this. The studios that do well out of it simply make vouchers easy to find, easy to buy and easy to use.

Why Vouchers Are Worth More Than Their Face Value

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  The money arrives in your busiest month. You are paid in December, when cash flow is easy to plan around, for a visit that usually happens later.
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  They fill January and February. Voucher holders tend to book in the new year, exactly when walk-in trade goes quiet.
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  They bring in new customers. The person who buys the voucher already knows you. The person who receives it often doesn't, and they usually bring someone with them.
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  People rarely spend exactly the voucher amount. A £25 voucher meets a £32 piece and a hot chocolate. The voucher gets them through the door. The rest of the visit is ordinary trade.

Sell Them Online, Not Just at the Counter

The counter only sells to people who are already in your studio. An online voucher page sells to everyone who follows you, at any hour, including the last-minute shoppers on Christmas Eve. A digital voucher arrives by email in seconds, so you can keep selling long after the last posting date has passed.

A good voucher page lets the buyer:

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  Pick a simple amount, or choose their own. Three clear options, such as £25, £50 and £100, cover most gifts. A box for any other amount catches the rest.
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  Add a personal message. It turns a voucher into a present.
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  Choose how it is delivered. Straight to the recipient by email, or to the buyer to print and wrap. Some people want to hand something over on the day.
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  Schedule it. Bought in November, delivered at 7am on Christmas morning. This is the feature buyers love most, because it means they can sort the present now and forget about it.

Give Them Something to Wrap

Plenty of buyers still want something physical. You do not need expensive pre-printed plastic cards for that. Two cheaper options work well:

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  A printed voucher. A neat A4 or A5 page with the amount, the recipient's name, the code and a QR code, ready to fold into a card.
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  A sticker inside your own card. Design a greetings card once in Canva, print a batch, and stick a small label with the code and QR inside each one as you sell it. A small Bluetooth label printer costs far less than a run of plastic cards, and every voucher still looks like yours.

Decide Your Terms Before You Sell the First One

Most voucher arguments happen because the terms were never written down. Settle these now and print them on every voucher:

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  How long it lasts. Twelve months is the most common choice and feels fair to customers. Whatever you pick, show the expiry date clearly on the voucher.
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  What it can be spent on. Sessions only, or anything in the studio, including parties and shop items. The simpler the answer, the fewer questions at the counter.
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  Whether it can be split. Let people spend it over more than one visit and keep the balance. It is friendlier, and it brings them back again.
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  No cash back. Say it once on the voucher and you will never have to say it at the till.

Make Them Easy to Spend

A voucher that is awkward to use is a voucher that sits in a drawer, and an unhappy customer when they finally find it. Four things make redemption painless:

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  Put it in their phone's wallet. A digital voucher that can be added to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet in one tap lives on the phone they carry everywhere, not in an inbox they never search. It is there when they walk in, and it is much harder to forget.
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  Scan, don't type. A QR code on every voucher means staff scan it at the till and the balance comes off in a second, even on a packed Saturday.
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  Let them use it when they book. If you take deposits for sessions, customers should be able to pay that deposit with their voucher online, rather than paying twice and sorting it out later.
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  Let them check the balance themselves. A simple balance checker on your voucher page saves a lot of “how much is left on mine?” messages.

Some Will Never Be Spent. Go After Them.

Not every voucher gets used. Industry estimates quoted by the Irish government put the share left partly unspent at around one in ten for vouchers that only work in one shop, and higher for experience vouchers that need booking, which is exactly what a pottery session is. When Which? asked people why they hadn't used an experience voucher, the most common answers were that they forgot about it, or couldn't get a date that suited.

It is tempting to see an unspent voucher as money in the bank. We would see it the other way round. A voucher that gets used brings in a customer who usually spends more than its value, often brings a friend, and may well come back. A voucher that expires in a drawer leaves someone with a slightly sour memory of your studio. So make it easy to spend:

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  Get it into their wallet. A voucher in Apple or Google Wallet is much harder to forget than one buried in an email.
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  Send a friendly reminder. A note in the spring to anyone holding a voucher, and another a month or two before it expires.
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  Keep dates open in January and February. “Couldn't get a date” is a problem you can fix.

Keep Good Records

Voucher money is not quite yours until it is spent. Keep a clear list of every voucher sold, what is left on each one and when it expires, so you always know what you owe in future visits. It also means that when someone says their voucher never arrived, you can check, resend it and move on, rather than taking their word for it. Ask your accountant how they would like voucher sales and redemptions recorded, especially for VAT.

Your Christmas Voucher Timeline

Then plan January with them in mind. Keep enough sessions open for voucher holders, and think about a gentle reminder in the spring for anyone who hasn't used theirs yet. For the rest of the season, our Christmas rush guide covers deadlines, shelves and collections.