Intuit
Company: Intuit, Mountain View, California
Company Description: Intuit Inc. is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses, consumers and accounting professionals. Its services simplify small business management and payroll processing, personal finance, and tax preparation and filing. Founded in 1983, Intuit has nearly 7,000 employees with offices in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.
Nomination Category: Company, Office & Product Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best New Product or Service
Nomination Title: QuickBooks Point of Sale Gift Card Service
1. Tell the story about this nominated product or service (up to 500 words). Describe its function, features, benefits, and sales to date. You may include hyperlinks to product photos and data sheets. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Retailers have found that offering gift cards is a great way to increase revenue and bring new customers to their door step. In fact, a recent Deloitte & Touch survey from February 2005 shows that 67 percent of shoppers planned to buy an average of five gift cards in 2005, making them the No.1 purchase of the year. In addition, 62 percent of consumers spend more than face value when redeeming a gift card. As a result gift cards sold in retail stores are a quickly growing "impulse buy" for consumers, and in 2004 almost two-thirds of national shoppers said that they intended to buy gift cards for friends and family. These results are why QuickBooks Point of Sale (QB POS) introduced a gift card service that gives small retailers the opportunity to compete with the big guys.
Launched in November 2005, the QB POS Gift Card Service is an option for small retail owners to bring gift cards to their customers while increasing revenue and boosting customer loyalty!
Unlike paper gift certificates, the QB POS Gift Card Service is built right into the retailers’ software allowing them the ability to issue cards at the point of sale while keeping track of if and when they’re redeemed.
One major benefit to the gift card service is that retailers are able to send commingled transactions between the purchaser’s credit card and the retailers issued gift card, appearing as a single transaction. For retailers who have more than one physical location they can elect to have multiple locations accept the gift cards; allowing retailers to issue cards at one location, and honor them at another. In addition, the QB POS Gift Cards are magnetized giving retailers the option to swipe the card, eliminating incorrect data entry and increased convenience.
Additionally, QB POS customers can design a personal look to their gift cards through QuickBooks design services, or if a store does not have a specific logo, retailers can use ready-made cards with template backgrounds.
Reports are also provided within the QB POS software for all gift card activity. For example, retailers can pull up a Balance Summary report that will show the number of outstanding gift card balances, or they can pull up the Activity Detail report which outlines business intelligence related to gift card usage such as customer buying history, loyalty and amount spent over the gift card limit.
Microsoft, Intuit’s number one competitor, recently launched their own POS offering for small retailers, but QuickBooks POS is looking in the rear view mirror. Microsoft’s Point of Sale offering is positioned identically with QB POS, but the software giant does not offer hardware packages and add-on’s, such as gift cards, with its POS software. In stead, Microsoft relies heavily on the reseller channel to sell hardware and provide support.
2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, product reviews, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Customer testimonial:
http://www.intuit.com/about_intuit/press_room/vpk_quickbooks_pos/
qb_pos_quotesheet.pdf
Latest QB POS Press Release
http://web.intuit.com/about_intuit/press_releases/2005/05-02.html
QuickBooks Point of Sale Gift Card Service Website:
http://quickbooks.intuit.com/commerce/catalog/product.jhtml?p
rodId=prod0000000000007996102
3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that developed this nominated product or service:
Steven Aldrich is General Manager of Intuit’s QuickBooks POSteam. Before POS, Steven led many Intuit teams that have created significant growth for the company including acquisition strategy, the QuickBooks industry-specific offering line-up, and new market development.
Steven has extensive experience in financial services and technology and was named in Institutional Investor’s 1997 list of the top 20 most influential people in financial services on the Internet. He was recognized as an Arjay Miller Scholar while completing his MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and he holds an AB in Physics from the University of North Carolina.