Why You Need “Impulse Prizes” in Your Redemption Program

We’ve divided every prize you could offer your guests into four (4) primary categories, based on the Player Types System, to make prize selection easier and more effective.

To do this, we’ve given each Player Type what we call a Preferred Redemption Range, or a ticket range in which they most frequently redeem. It’s also the range of prizes that are most attractive to that Player Type.

The reason we’ve created these Preferred Redemption Ranges is because having the right Prize Value Mix — based on your business’ data — is critical to seeing optimal return in the redemption program and game room. Your Prize Value Mix is having the right variety of prizes at varying ticket ranges to satisfy all your Players needs.

Today we’re going to cover one of the most important Preferred Redemption Ranges: The “Impulse” Redemption Range. The reason the Impulse Range is so important is because almost every Family or Bowling Entertainment Center has Impulse Players who LOVE prizes from this Redemption Range.

The Impulse Range covers any prizes ticketed between 0 and 250 tickets (based on our standard ticket values below). Think smaller items or toys, like Samurai Swords — which is also one of our top performing prizes!

Who loves the Impulse Redemption Range?

The players we’ve observed who prefer this redemption range are:

• (typically) Ages 5–10
• Prioritize instant gratification over saving — “I want that prize, now!”
• Often spends all their tickets in one visit

If you have any other questions about Impulse Players or their favorite Redemption Range, give one of our Value Architects a call or visit PlayerTypes.com to learn about our ever-evolving Player Type System so we can guarantee you have the perfect Prize Value Mix.

It’s important to remember that every center needs a percentage of prizes from the Impulse Redemption Range to satisfy single-visit customers.

We also see a lot of specific kinds of FEC & BECs with a higher percentage of Impulse Players, like businesses in a high-volume tourist area, where most people are visiting for a short period of time and are not likely to return. It’s also the perfect fit for birthday party guests. In both instances, these players will often use the Impulse Range as a means to “round out” their prize selection.

For example: A guest earns 500 tickets during his visit. He decides to use his tickets to redeem a 400-ticket item. He will then look to the Impulse Range to spend the remaining 100 tickets.

Picking the Right Impulse Prizes

Now that you know you should be buying (at least some) Impulse Prizes, it’s important to know how to maintain a great selection of merchandise within this range:

• Variety is key. Think: “The smaller the item, the more types I need.” This will give your impulse players a wider selection and more incentive to play. Variety can come from different sizes, different designs, and different colors.
• Pick items at varying ticket values within the redemption range. Make sure you have some lower ticket items, say between 25–50 tickets, and some higher ticket items — like Samurai Swords — between 100–250 tickets. NOTE: Ticket values based on Redemption Plus’ Standard Ticket Value. Values may vary from business to business.
• The Candy & Novelty Categories are great options for finding popular Impulse Prizes
• Also, utilize our Impulse Prizes category online to find other great options.

Merchandising Matters

Getting the right prizes is only half the battle. How you merchandise them determines how your guests perceive the value of your prizes, and can even dictate their incentive to play games (to win those prizes). That’s a lot of $$$ riding on merchandising! Here are our merchandising best-practices for prizes within the Impulse Range:

• A perfect spot for these trinkets, collectables and small toys is in your bins (like the ones below). The fuller the bins look, the better the items will appeal to your customers. Organize your bin items by ticket value in a way that makes sense. It’s confusing when different-valued items are jumbled all across your cabinet.

• If hanging a prize like Samurai Swords using pegs, keep them lower on the wall so they are easily visible to the Impulse Player, like you see below. We also recommend higher-ticket items be placed toward the top and these lower-ticket items — like Impulse Prizes — at the bottom so your guests can easily differentiate the value of products.

The Right Prize Value Mix = A Winning Business

As we said in the beginning, getting the right Prize Value Mix — having the right variety of prizes at varying ticket ranges to satisfy all your Players needs — is key to having a successful redemption program, and bottom line. Making sure you have the right amount and variety of Impulse Prizes is important for every FEC & BEC, especially those with a high volume of single-time visitors. Over the next year we’ll continue to write about what makes the Impulse Range (and the other three Redemption Ranges) so important to your business, and how you can use our expertise to maximize your profits.

We know that getting your Prize Value Mix can be difficult: keeping track of trends, best practices, the science of merchandising and changes to customer behavior takes hours of effort.

If you’d like to get those hours back in your day to focus on building a better guest experience for your players (and a better bottom line), rather than choosing which prizes go where, we’re here to help.

It’s why we created our Prize Storyboards, or pre-merchandised plan-o-grams of prizes with the perfect Prize Value Mix for your business, refreshed twice a year. Each Storyboard is merchandised with a narrative in mind to engage your guests and make finding the perfect prize a piece-of-cake. It’s Easy. It’s Simple. It Works.

This is one of our favorite and most recent Prize Storyboards, Armed & Ready.

No more work picking prizes. No more hours spent choosing where they should go for maximum redemption. No more wasted time. Let us handle the hassle, while you focus on what you need to: managing an amazing business and guest experience.

If that sounds awesome to you, we encourage you connect with one of our Value Architects today and ask about our new Merchandising Solutions, using our new Prize Storyboards to eliminate waste and rework, give you back hours a week, and maximize your redemption economics for optimal return.

This article is by Justin Michaels, a Value Architect at Redemption Plus.

Insights Empower is a collection of thoughts & insights to inspire, educate and connect the Family Entertainment & Bowling Center industry. From the team at Redemption Plus, est. 2017 🎉

Visit us at RedemptionPlus.com for more ways to #win.