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Gift Certificate Product

Akhil S
  • Updated

This tutorial goes over creating gift certificate products for your store. A gift certificate product allows you to offer a gift certificate in a predetermined or custom amount that can be purchased by the shopper. Once purchased, our system will generate a code and email the code recipient with any information the shopper provided (redemption link and a custom message). 

Keep in mind, in order for the code to be redeemed, the code receiver must create an account or have an existing account in the system to apply it to.

This feature works in conjunction with the following features. You may want to understand these before proceeding.

  • Gift Certificates - When a gift certificate product is purchased, it automatically creates a gift certificate code. 
  • Account Balances - When a gift certificate is redeemed, it creates an account balance on the recipient's user account.

Lastly, if your store was created before 01/02/2019, you may require a theme update to support this functionality. Please fill out this form if you need your theme updated to support gift certificate products.

NOTE: Coupon discount codes CANNOT be used to purchase a gift certificate product.

Article Sections

Configure a Gift Certificate Product

Access the gift certificate product.

  1. Access the Products & Categories section.
  2. Verify you are on the Products page.
  3. Click the New Gift Certificate Product button.

Fill out the required fields and any optional information you may need.

Information specific to gift certificate products:

  1. Email Subject - Subject of the email generated by the system.
  2. Valid for Days: - Gift Certificate codes expire at 11:59:59 on the last day - if nothing is input, codes won’t expire.
  3. Min/Max Code Length - This will determine the minimum and maximum length of codes generated by the system.
  4. Allow Custom Amount: - Check this if shoppers can input their own custom amounts.
  5. Require User Input - Check these boxes to require the shopper to input the recipient's information.
  6. Save - Click to create the product.

Once the product is saved, you’ll notice more tabs appear for Images, Gift Certificate Amounts, and Related Products. These tabs can be edited to further customize the gift certificate product.

Add an Image

The Images tab allows you to upload image files (.png or .jpg/.jpeg files only) for the gift certificate product

  1. Navigate to the Images section.
  2. Click Upload images.
  3. Drag and drop or click the box to select the image from your system.
  4. Click Save to save the image.
  5. Click Save to save changed to the product. 

Add Gift Certificate Amounts

The Gift Certificate Amounts  tab allows you to input predetermined gift certificate amounts for the shoppers to select from. If no amounts are created, the shopper will only have the option to enter a custom amount on the storefront.

  1. Navigate to theGift Certificate Amountstab.
  2. Click the Add Amount button.
  3. Enter the gift certificate amount into the Amount field.
    • Follow the above-mentioned steps to add additional amounts.
  4. Click Save to save these amounts.

Related Products

The Related Products tab functions like it does with normal products and will pull related products depending on if it’s set to auto-related products or custom related products. Here’s an overview of the differences between the two:

  • Auto related products - Pulls related products in based on the category assignment.
  • Custom related products - Pulls related products in based on items specifically selected.

  1. Navigate to Related Products.
  2. Activate the toggle for Enable Related Products.
  3. Select whether you want them to be Auto related products or Custom related products. (OPTIONAL:If you selectCustom related products, you can add products using the drop down list).
  4. Click Save.

Gift Certificate Product Storefront Example

Here’s what an example of what the finished version of the product would look like on the storefront:

Recipient Email Example

If a recipient email was provided when ordered, an email is generated by the system with the gift certificate code. Here's what is sent to the code recipient. The logo, button color, and store name will reflect based off your settings in the theme designer

Gift Certificate Admin Dashboard Examples

Once the gift certificate is ordered, the details of the purchase are displayed in the Order and Gift Certificate sections.

Order Example on Admin Dashboard

  1. Click edit for the order you wish to review.
  2. Click into the Products section for the order.
  3. Click the drop-down for the gift certificate product.
  4. The details will be displayed.

Gift Certificate Example on Admin Dashboard

  1. Access the Coupons & Gift Certs section.
  2. Click into the Gift Certificates section.
  3. The gift certificate will be displayed with all the recipient details.

FAQs

Q: What if I don’t require the email address and the shopper doesn’t input anything?

A: No message is generated by our system and the code purchased by the shopper is only included on their copy of the order confirmation email.

Q: How does this work if my store is using MOAS?

A: Only when the order is approved will codes be generated by our system. If the order is denied, no codes are generated.

Q: Why doesn’t “GC Information” or “Purchased By” appear for all my gift certificates that were created?

A: Gift certificate codes that were manually created or uploaded will not reflect the same information.

Q: Does the user need an account to redeem the code?

A: Yes, an account in the store is required in order for them to redeem their code.

Q: My shopper says that they want to give 1 user multiple codes, how do I have them do that?

A: The shopper would have to adjust the quantity they want to purchase and then in the Recipient fields on the storefront, the shopper would repeat the email address and user info for the subsequent gift certificates they’re purchasing.

Q: Can I set the format of the codes the system generates?

A: No. The only configuration for codes is setting the minimum/maximum length of codes generated. Codes generated by the system will be random alphanumeric values.

Q: Can I configure it so the code is for a specific product or category of items?

A: No, gift certificate codes cannot be permissioned to be only used on products or categories.

Q: What happens if the user doesn’t use the full balance from the code they redeemed?

A:  The balance will remain on the shopper’s account for them to use for future purchases. If you need to adjust that balance, please click here to see more information on making that change.

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