Hi,
Well, I run a flying school....
But margins? Well, that is commercially sensitive information.
What I can tell you is.......
Gift vouchers are a great way to get cash up front, fabulous for cash flow. Business is as much about cash flow as profit.
A good number of gift vouchers are unredeemed, so seem like money for nothing. However, you still have costs! ie phone, printing, marketing, postage etc. Even if you do online only, so no postage, you have IT costs!
As a flying school, trial lessons can be a pain. Having to explain how to find the airfield several hundred times a year! My favourite? "Oh, I see on the suppliers website there is a Strathaven Airport and a Strathaven Airfield, which one are you on!" All thanks to Google maps!
With students, it is "see you next week at 2pm".
So I think, as a flying school, gift vouchers should be priced at almost double the hourly student rate to take into account credit card fees, postage, telephone time for sale, people time for printing out vouchers, paperwork, the odd refunds (under DSR), bookings, directions etc, etc etc.
With the credit crunch, there has been a distinct increase in the numbers phoning to ask could they get their money back nine months after buying the voucher. And I think we may have to put a health warning on ours since so many of our customers seem to have got life-threatening illnesses which prevented them from flying in the past nine months!
Give them a refund/don't give them a refund? It all costs time.
So these are the costs/hassles you will face.
Where people make money is cross-selling. Once you know dad's birthday, you can target annual emails offering similar experiences.
The big people will know exactly how many people who have a flying lesson then go on a spa day/ferrari ride/horse treking. So they know what to give the £5 birthday discount on!
You won't, and you won't be offering those experiences!
Finally, if an agency approaches me, I want to know two things:
First, what happens to my money: ideally paid once they book in, rather than after they fly.
Second: is it going to be worth my while. If you are only going to sell two or three vouchers a year, I can't be ar*sed with new paperwork. So you'll need to be having a good marketing spend.
There you are, some free info from the horse's mouth.
It's worth what you paid for it!