If you run a small business in Australia and you've been wondering whether you should sell gift cards, here's the short version: yes.

Here's the slightly longer version, including the bits about Australian Consumer Law nobody seems to mention until you've already messed it up.

Why gift cards make sense for an Australian small business

You already know your regulars love what you do. What you might not have thought about is how often their friends, parents, partners and siblings would love to buy a gift card to your business for them.

Right now, if you don't sell gift cards, those people end up giving a supermarket card or a Westfield card instead. A digital gift card fixes that. Someone buys it from anywhere in Australia (or overseas), the recipient gets it on their phone, they walk in and redeem.

What Australian Consumer Law actually requires

You need to know this one, because it's enforceable by the ACCC.

Gift cards sold in Australia on or after 1 November 2019 must be valid for at least 3 years from the date of supply. You can offer longer. You can't offer shorter.

You also can't charge fees that reduce the card's value after purchase. No monthly inactivity fees. No deductions that chip away at the balance. The expiry date must be clearly displayed on the card, or where there's no expiry, that needs to be stated too.

There are some exceptions to the 3-year minimum, including promotional cards, cards available only for a specified period, and cards supplied to charities. The full ACCC guidance is worth a read if you want the detail.

If you're handling all this manually, the compliance is a small headache. Okuru is designed to help businesses align with these requirements: validity periods, the no-post-purchase-fees rule, and disclosure are built into how the platform works.

The website problem (and why it isn't actually a problem)

A lot of Australian small businesses don't have a website, or they have a website that hasn't been touched since 2019. Most digital gift card advice assumes you have a working online checkout. If you don't, the advice may as well be in Latin.

This is where a marketplace works differently. Instead of needing your own website, you get a storefront inside the Okuru app. Customers find your business through the platform, buy a gift card, and the recipient redeems by showing the card on their phone when they walk in.

Sign up, we set you up. Businesses are typically live within 24 hours (once all necessary business information has been provided).

What it costs

Okuru charges no setup fee, no monthly fee, and 7.5% per sale. You pay only when you sell.

For context, Uber Eats currently charges Australian restaurants around 30% commission on full-service orders. 7.5% is on the lower end of what platforms charge to bring small businesses new customers, and every gift card sale is a customer you didn't have to advertise to find.

How to start

If you sell anything giftable, apply at okuru.app/for-businesses.

Businesses are typically live within 24 hours (once all necessary business information has been provided). No setup fee, no monthly fee, no website required. The next time someone wants to send a gift card to your business, you'll be findable. Which, right now, you possibly aren't.