SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The city of Sacramento is offering its “Shop 916” gift card promotion in 2023 to incentivize residents who shop local.
"This is our third holiday season that we're launching the 'Shop 916' local promotion, which is a buy one, get one gift card for consumers to purchase and for local businesses to benefit from," said Valerie Mamone, project development manager for the program with the city.
A person who buys a “Shop 916” gift card can use it at more than 100 participating Sacramento businesses, according to Mamone.
Customers can buy a $25 gift card and get a $10 bonus gift card for free, buy a $50 gift card and get a $25 bonus gift card for free, or buy a $100 gift card and get a $50 bonus gift card for free. The cards can be used throughout the city at any of the 110 participating businesses in the program.
The promotional offer is available from Nov. 15, to Feb. 15, 2024, and the bonus gift cards must be used by March 31, 2024.
Bonus cards are limited to five per person. Regular gift cards do not expire.
The city launched the program in Dec. 2021 to support local retailers negatively impacted by COVID.
"We are utilizing some federal dollars that we still have in our bank, which are American Rescue (Plan) dollars. And we are utilizing those and leveraging those dollars to encourage you to go out into shop local and support our small businesses," said Mamone.
The American Rescue Plan was an act introduced in 2021 to provide pandemic relief at local and tribal levels. A total of $535,000 in gift and bonus cards have been spent in Sacramento so far, according to the city.
"That's just the gift card dollars. We know that up to 30%, if not more of the gift card value will be spent in the store, so people don't just go in and spend the $25 on the gift card, they usually spend 30% more of that gift card value," said Mamone.
While every dollar can make an impact, a dollar to a local business goes farther in the community.
"I think these small businesses are the people that live in our community. They're feeding their families in our community, they're invested in our community and they give back to our community," said Mamone. "So I think that is where the dollar is different. It goes further because they are continuing to support our economy."
“Shop 916” also offers a volume discount program for one-time or ongoing purchases of $1,000 or more which eliminates fees associated with the card, the city said. Bulk purchases can be used for employee rewards, customer appreciation, holiday gifts and welcome gifts.
"If you're a corporation that is looking to buy gift cards for employees, if you're going to spend over $1,000 on gift cards, we're waiving the fee that is associated with buying them so we're trying to incentivize big corporations to buy gift cards for their employees; we'll waive that fee and we will personalize your gift card with your company logo on there," said Mamone.
The program is open to all businesses within Sacramento with 500 or fewer full-time equivalent employees, with the exception of home-based businesses, franchises, liquor-only stores and cannabis businesses.
Gift cards can be purchased and businesses can sign up to participate at shop916local.com.
