Culwell & Son

Culwell & Son, The Men's Store of Dallas, is one specialty retailer that has successfully made the transition from paper-based gift certificates to a branded gift card program that integrates with their enterprise software. This high-end, men's clothing store based in Dallas, TX, doing business since 1920, has sold more than $75,000 worth of gift cards during a recent holiday season.

When Mike Culwell, President and Owner, began considering UTC RETAIL's offerings, he found a company dedicated to improving and expanding their product set capabilities, and they were available for first-hand support and consultation. "Being able to talk to the people who develop and support the software was very important to Culwell & Son, and was heavily weighted in the final decision making process," said Culwell.

CHALLENGE: Outdated Technology and Paper-Based Gift Certificates

Like so many small to medium-sized specialty retailers, Culwell & Son managed a paper-based gift certificate program for many years providing their customers a convenient gift option. However, since the program was paper-based it came with many challenges including manual tracking, lack of control, lost and damaged certificates and counterfeit certificates.

In addition, a paper-based gift certificate program is viewed as "old" technology by consumers and Culwell & Son felt they were no longer able to provide a gift program that could compete with those offered by the larger chain stores. Bottom line, Culwell & Son saw a need to change and improve their gift card program for their customers.

SOLUTION: UTC RETAIL Gift Card

After looking at a number of options Culwell decided that the UTC RETAIL Gift Card program was the best choice for them. The UTC RETAIL Gift Card product is a best-of-breed solution that integrates to most enterprise solutions and after a 30 minute online demo of the software by UTC RETAIL, Culwell was sold.

Mike Culwell states, "The installation of the UTC RETAIL software and Gift Card program was so smooth, I kept asking myself: 'what have I missed?'"

Culwell & Son owns the gift card application, so they don't need to pay fees every time a transaction goes against a card. Culwell can reuse and recharge cards as loyalty drivers for their best customers or to encourage inactive customers to come back into the store. Customers can access account information easily by swiping their card in the store for balances, receipts and a history of transactions. Again, there is no charge to the retailer for this convenience.

Training of their sales people was fast and efficient and they found that the program was easy to use. The learning curve and transition to electronic gift cards has been fairly seamless for most of UTC RETAIL's customers. Once Culwell & Son was up and running, they had total operational and marketing flexibility with robust features that encourage customer purchases and increase brand loyalty.

RESULTS: UTC RETAIL Gift Card
Benefits the Retailer and the Customer

During a recent holiday season, Culwell and Son attributed $75,000 of their sales to the new gift card program. With redemption rates averaging more than 80% in the program's first year, Culwell says gift cards have been a great business driver. Electronic gift cards have rendered paper gift certificates "archaic" and have made fans out of their customers as well as their salespeople. Culwell now offers their customers all the same multi-channel gift card functionality and convenience available through big box competitors such as Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.

Mike Culwell estimates his store sells twice as many gift cards as they did gift certificates and says the new program saves on labor as associates don't have to spend time writing out and tracking paper certificates. And they do not have to be concerned that the paper certificate will get lost somewhere in the customer's wallet. Culwell goes the extra mile and provides their branded gift cards in a silver box with Culwell & Son embossed on the face. Beyond the convenience that a gift card provides for the user, Mike Culwell also believes that a gift card is psychologically empowering for their customers and it makes them feel part of something unique.

"Customers have a card they can slip right in with the credit cards in their wallet, so they see it as a more viable option" Culwell says. "Our salespeople often recommend a gift card to a customer who doesn't know the size of the person they are buying for, especially around the Christmas season. To an extent, gift cards help solve the problem of fit, size, color, and taste in apparel shopping. If Uncle Bob gets a shirt as a gift he may never come into the store. But when he gets a gift card, we have the opportunity to up-sell him and show him what we are all about. We have brought a lot of good customers into the store through the gift card program."

Culwell & Son has also been very creative in the many ways they market their Gift Cards. They have donated them to local schools for fund-raising events and to charitable organizations such as the American Heart Association.

Culwell offers seasonal gift cards in various denominations and has used them for specific prospect marketing campaigns such as giving them out to executives with a face value of $100 good for 30 days.

Moving to UTC RETAIL's Gift Card has allowed Culwell to keep up with the trends in retailing and be able to offer their customers the services and incentives they expect.