California Pizza Kitchen is offering consumers a $20 gift card for buying digital and print gift cards this holiday season. Consumers can order and redeem the gift cards from their mobile devices.

“Marketers love gift cards because they give the brand at least two consumer interactions [with a] buyer and redeemer,” said Marci Troutman, CEO of SiteMinis, Atlanta.

“Holiday gift cards will produce more than $25 billion in sales, and each dollar spent on a gift card generates upwards to a $1.40 in actual transactions when spent at the register,” she said. “Additionally there is usually a 10 percent breakage from the cards on average — money not redeemed.”

Ms. Troutman is not associated with California Pizza Kitchen. She commented based on her expertise on the subject.

California Pizza Kitchen did not respond to press inquiries.

Mobile incentive
Consumers who buy gift cards from California Pizza Kitchen – either in electronic or paper form – from Nov. 5 to Dec. 31 for $100 or more will receive a $20 rewards card. To redeem the card, consumers will need to register it at http://www.cpk.com/.

Users can buy the gift cards from California Pizza Kitchen’s mobile site. A button advertising gift cards is prominently promoted on the company’s mobile site homepage.

From there, consumers can fill out a form, add a gift card to their shopping basket and check-out.

Although the process of buying a card is straight-forward, the page that users are redirected to is not optimized for mobile, meaning that users have to pinch and zoom to view content. Instead, California Pizza Kitchen could have optimized the pages connected to digital gift cards, especially since they are promoted on the mobile site’s homepage.

Gift cards are then sent to users via email. Consumers can redeem them in the restaurant by showing the server their mobile device.

Giving users an incentive when buying a gift for the holidays could help California Pizza Kitchen increase both the quantity of gift cards that are sold and the amount that users load the gift cards with.

Mobile pizza
In addition to gift cards, California Pizza Kitchen is also using mobile to drive consumers into restaurants with mobile ordering.

The feature is available on both the company’s mobile site and application. For example, the mobile site uses a device’s built-in GPS to find the nearest location. Users are then redirected to a page on Snapfinger’s mobile site where they can place their orders.

California Pizza Kitchen’s mobile app on the other hand keeps the entire ordering process inside the app.

For fast casual restaurants such as California Pizza Kitchen, mobile is a great way to streamline the ordering process for consumers.

It is also important to give consumers a variety of options on how to interact with a brand – whether it is placing a meal order or buying a gift card.

“Mobile gift cards will continue to grow as mobile becomes more embedded in consumers’ every day life for shopping, and incentives are shown to be significant drivers for mobile engagements,” Ms. Troutman said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York