Donegal Town eyes next stage of ‘shop local’ growth

A Donegal business group has announced plans for a new gift card to make support for local easy and user-friendly in the town.

Led by Donegal Town Business Focus Group, the physical and digital Donegal Town Gift Card will replace the paper Shop Local Vouchers which have generated over €1.5 million in sales since launching in 2016.

Set to launch before Christmas, retail, hospitality, accommodation, health and beauty and services businesses will all be represented on the new Donegal Town Gift Card.

Members of the Donegal Town Business Focus Group are currently being registered to accept the new Mastercard backed gift card, which works with merchants’ existing payment terminals, with no additional equipment required. The balance on the gift card is automatically updated, with recipients able to check their balance online at any time.

Raymond Rooney from the Donegal Town Business Focus Group said: “Our Shop Local Vouchers were incredibly successful for our small town but we’ve reached the stage where the initiative has grown as big as it can due to the limitations of paper vouchers. The new Donegal Town Gift Card will take us to the next stage of growth, making it easy for organisations and consumers to support local.

“It’s vital for Donegal to have its own gift card because without it, consumers and organisations are left with national gift cards that can only be spent in a few businesses in town – not many businesses accept them because of the high commission rate. That means money earmarked for Donegal leaves Donegal, and we don’t want that.

“The gift card is a no-brainer for businesses to accept and customers to buy because it’s easy and user-friendly. The old vouchers were quite large and too big to carry around, whereas the new physical gift card will fit into a wallet or purse, and the e-card version can be added to their digital wallets. Anything that facilitates spending locally is a good thing.”

The Donegal Town Gift Card will be part of the multi award winning Town & City Gift Card concept active across Ireland in Ballinrobe, Carndonagh, Drogheda, Letterkenny, Sligo and Waterford. Over €7 million Town & City Gift Cards were sold in Ireland in 2023, with around 80% of sales to organisations for staff rewards and incentives.

Colin Munro is the managing director of Miconex and said: “Donegal Town has achieved great success with their paper vouchers but the limitations around security, ease of use and merchant redemption can make it difficult for paper programs to fully unlock the shop local potential of a town or city. The forthcoming Donegal Town Gift Card will utilise tried and tested technology to make shop local easy, attractive and convenient. We’ll be working closely with the Donegal Town Business Focus Group and its members to help them to transition to a modern gift card that aligns with the ambitions of the town.”