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Bristol tech company offers ‘lifeline’ to thousands of firms
The entrepreneurs behind an innovative gift card business are offering their platform for free to enable companies to bring in revenue during the pandemic.
Gift Up!, which is based at Future Space, has developed the technology to allow companies to create virtual gift cards for their products to be sold via any website, in any native currency across the globe.
Bosses hope that making their service available free of charge will act as a lifeline for businesses losing revenue due to lockdown closures.
Commenting on the initiative, Gift Up! co-founder Lee Tracey said: “We’ve found ourselves in an incredibly unique position amid the covid-19 crisis to make a huge difference to the lives of business owners across the world through our platform.
“For the first time in our lifetime, we’ve crafted some software that can genuinely play a part in affecting the success or failure of companies that have nowhere else to turn right now, and that’s an amazing thing to be able to do.
“We’ve had customers getting in touch to say that Gift Up! is literally going to save their business. We urge firms to take full advantage of our offer and to spread the word far and wide – we want to help as many people as possible.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDbwlDqFUZw&feature=youtu.be
When a gift card is purchased via Gift Up!, merchants are credited with the money immediately rather than having to wait until the product or service is redeemed by the recipient, providing financial support to relieve the cashflow crisis faced by firms worldwide.
Gift Up! usually takes a cut of each gift card sold but founders Lee and Alex Allen are offering up to $5,000 in gift card revenue free of any fees to any business across the world as a goodwill gesture during this period of global pandemic.
The software-building duo, who started the company in 2017 and now handle gift card sales for more than 15,000 customers internationally and have partnered with Eventbrite and Stripe.
The owner of Bristol Massage Therapy and Gift Up! customer Victoria Armstrong set up her company in 2011 and has felt the financial hit of the coronavirus since closing completely in compliance with social distancing regulations.
“It’s a crazy time for service-led businesses like Bristol Massage Therapy, having to shut up shop and essentially cutting off our income entirely as we physically cannot continue in the circumstances,” says Victoria.
“Gift Up! has provided a safety net for us in enabling our customers to purchase massages to be redeemed in the future – as a gift for somebody else or banking it for themselves once this is all over.
“We have loyal customers who want to support us through this time and I’ve been able to provide them with a simple way to do that through Gift Up!.
“The ease is outstanding – it is truly a hands-off, stress-free process and I encourage other business owners to sign-up to continue to protect themselves for the future by generating much-needed income.”
To find out more about the Gift Up! covvid-19 initiative, visit www.giftupapp.com/covid19
Main photo of Lee Tracey courtesy of Gift Up!
Read more: Bristol firm uses power of AI to improve access to employment
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