How to jump on the experience bandwagon with Toggle. Trust us, it’s not as tricky as it seems.

So you sell gift cards? That’s great news. Now you’re in the groove of things let’s take it further; let’s talk experiences. What does experience even mean? You might think you’re not the type of business to offer anything other than gift cards, but trust us, it’s actually super easy and you may well be about 90% there anyway.The experience iron is hot and you should absolutely get striking. The 2018 Influencers Report by CGA reported that London’s high-end ‘influencer’ bars have seen a huge rise in popularity of experiences, with 93% of London’s most influential bars planning experiential activities such as mixologist masterclasses, tasting sessions and meet-the-distiller evenings in the next 12 months. Fancy a bit of that? Here’s how we suggest you get started.

Package ‘em up real nice

The beauty of an experience is that you can make it feel that little bit more special than a regular gift card. Experiences are essentially just a monetary value (there are a few differences that we talk about later on) dressed up in a big old bow. There’s so much scope to take something you already offer, package it up and give it a name on both a large and smaller scale. For example, if you have the space and resources, you can host events such as cocktail masterclasses, a bread making workshop or even a site tour. If you’re after something a little lower maintenance, and if you’re a restaurant, for example, you could package up two main meals, two desserts and a bottle of wine and call it ‘date night for two’. These are all things you already do but the person buying it and the person receiving it feel as though it’s a step beyond a normal gift card.

Utilise National Days

Looking for an excuse to offer an experience for a limited time? National Days are super handy when it comes to dressing up gifts for a particular occasion. There are the biggies like Father’s Day, Christmas, Valentine’s Day etc, and the slightly lesser known ones but still relevant like National Burger Day, National Cheese Day and National Cocktail Day - there’s pretty much a day for everything.You could think about offering an afternoon tea or a spa day for Mother’s Day, or a 7-course tasting menu for an anniversary gift? Whatever it is, Toggle lets you put experiences up and take them down from your webshop super easily - don’t be afraid to keep your Toggle webshop constantly changing.

How do experiences actually differ from gift cards with Toggle?

Gifts and experiences are technically treated exactly the same way in terms of process, but with a couple of key differences. Firstly, the value is never shown to the recipient, they can just see what experience they’ve been bought - nice for the recipient and good for the purchaser. It takes away that feeling of a fixed value. As the operator, you can of course still see the price. This is handy if you’ve changed up your pricing recently and want to double check the price someone has paid.There’s a couple of other features on Toggle which differentiate experiences from gift cards: adding sub-experiences and limiting the number of experiences available. Sub-experiences are essentially add ons to existing experiences. So, for example, if you offer an afternoon tea for two, why not make it for four? Or six? Each at a progressively better price point per person. Or you might want to have the option to add on a bottle of prosecco.Limited availability of experiences means you can limit the number of experiences available so once they’re gone, they’re really gone - ideal for a one-off event. You can even add a snazzy countdown/only *this many* remaining/sold out flash to show on your webshop.

Here are some examples of how Togglers are doing experiences. (At time of publishing)