BUSINESS REGISTRATION
Register to Join the Shop2Help Program
Through a grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Oakland Business Investment District (OBID) is providing a significant incentive for shoppers to purchase gift cards or gift certificates from your business. This initiative is in direct support of small businesses located in the Oakland Central Business District that have been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.
For each $25 gift card purchased, OBID will add $10 to the customer’s total gift card value. For example, if a customer spends $25, they will receive a $35 gift card and your business will receive $28.75 ($35 gift card value less a $6.25 donation to the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank). Gift cards can be purchased in increments of $25, with a limit of 10 cards ($250) per merchant/business, per transaction (for a maximum of $350 in redeemable value at your business).
This gift card program will remain active until all grant funds have been depleted – which may take days or weeks depending on how quickly the public takes advantage of this incentive.
How does the program work?
1. Your business provides OBID with an inventory of gift cards, gift certificates, or digital coupon codes – each with a value of $35. Provide as many or as few gift cards as you’d like us to try to sell on your behalf. We will be keeping records. Anything that doesn’t sell will be returned to you to be voided in your own system, so we encourage you to provide a large inventory to be sure that your inclusion in the program doesn’t sell out too quickly. In the event that we run out of gift cards to sell from the inventory you provide, we will notify you so that you can choose to replenish the inventory at that time.
2. Customers will purchase gift cards for your business through the Shop2Help.org or SupportOakland.com websites and receive an email receipt with a unique order number as proof of purchase. Each gift card will be worth the amount requested in increments of $35. This includes the $25 the spend to purchase the gift card plus an additional $10 provided by OBID as an extra incentive to support your business (while funds from the Richard King Mellon Foundation grant are available).
3. OBID will physically mail out the purchased gift cards/certificates (or email any digital coupon codes) to the customer within 7-14 days of their purchase. That means that you won’t have any responsibilities day-to-day to fulfill the purchases – as long as you get your inventory of gift cards, gift certificates, or valid digital codes to us ahead of time.
When customers have purchased all the inventory of gift cards your business has provided, the website will no longer sell your gift cards until the inventory is replenished. We’ll notify you if this happens so that you can choose to replenish the inventory at that time.
4. Your business will receive a check for the payout of all transactions on a monthly basis. This will include both the customer funds and the match funds provided by OBID, minus the $6.25 donation to Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank. For example, for every $35 gift card sold, you will receive a check for $28.75. Donations will be made in your business name based on the volume of sales, so you will receive a certificate denoting the donation amount at end-of-year for tax purposes, as well.
Note: If you’re not already familiar with the sales logic behind gift cards, studies show that shoppers using a gift card spend on average 30% more than the gift card value at time of purchase, so you should expect to generate considerably more sales over and above the $28.75 payout per $35 gift card sold.
5. Your business will be responsible for allowing customers to redeem your own gift card/gift certificate program and adhere to your own policies for redemption that you have provided when joining the program. OBID is merely acting as your agent to sell gift cards on your behalf and promote to the public at-large.