How do gift cards work?

Art. no. 216070287

Create a gift card product, generate a gift card code, activate gift cards.

How do gift cards work?

You can sell gift cards in your shop or generate a gift card code that you give out yourself. The difference between a discount code and a gift card is that gift cards are deducted from the total amount at checkout. A discount is only deducted from the items in the shopping basket.

You cannot edit the appearance of the gift card that is sent out via email, but you can of course make your own gift card in Photoshop, for example, and paste in the code that you generated yourself and email out to the buyer.

Gift cards are only available in the Webshop Plus and Webshop Pro subscription plans.

Activating gift cards in the shop

In order to use gift cards in the shop, you must first add a payment method and then activate it in the theme.

Add payment method for gift cards

Go to Settings -> Payment methods -> Add new payment method.

In the list select "Gift Card", click "Add" and then click the save button.

Activate the gift card field in the theme

Go to Appearance -> Themes -> select theme, edit -> Content -> Checkout.

In the "Discount Codes & Gift Cards" block, select "Enabled" and save.

Allow gift cards for active payment method in the store

For most payment methods, you need to activate that they can be combined with gift cards at checkout. The setting for this can be found under Settings -> Payment methods -> Click on the active payment method the store has. There is a setting for "Allow gift cards" that needs to be ticked.

The payment methods that require this setting are:

Klarna Checkout
Svea Checkout
Payson Checkout

What is a gift card product?

A gift card product is a product for selling gift cards. The store can create different gift card products with different amounts, for example 100 kr, 500 kr, 1000 kr etc. and then customers can buy the gift cards to give to a friend or similar.

A common question is whether it is possible to create a gift card product without an amount where the idea is that the buyer enters his own amount. Unfortunately, this is not possible and you have to create different gift card items with fixed amounts.

Create a gift card product

Go to Assortment -> Products -> New product -> New Gift Card

You can basically make all the settings as on a regular product such as entering description, linking to product groups, etc. We will only go through the most important properties here like validity period, name and price.

Validity

Specify a validity period for how long the gift card will be active. In Sweden the most common validity period is set to 10 years but the shop owner can choose this himself.

Name

Specify a name for the gift card product, for example "Gift card 500 kr".

Pricing

Price what the product should cost, for example 500 kr.

What is a gift card code?

If a shop owner wants to give away a gift card, for example to a winner of a competition or perhaps as compensation, he can generate a code directly in admin which he then gives to the customer.

Note: No code is automatically sent to the customer when you create a gift card code in admin. You have to make sure that the customer receives the code yourself, for example via SMS or email.

Create a gift card code

Go to Orders -> Gift cards -> New gift card

Gift card code

The easiest way to create a code is to click on the "Generate code" button. A random number of 13 digits will be generated. You can also enter your own code if you wish.

Note: You can only use a code once. If someone has used a gift card with the code "gift-100" for example, that code is used up. You cannot create a new gift card with the same code again.

Recipient's name

Optional field where you can enter the name of the recipient of the gift card.

Recipient's email address

Optional field where you can enter the email address of the recipient of the gift card.

Sender's name

Optional field where you can enter the name of the sender of the gift card.

Sender's email address

Optional field where you can enter the email address of the sender of the gift card.

Original value

Enter the value of the gift card, for example 500 kr.

Current value

A gift card can be used several times until the full amount is spent. This field shows how much money is left on used gift cards.

In our example, we create a new gift card and then we enter the same value as we entered in "Original value", i.e. 500 SEK.

Currencies

If the store has multiple currencies enabled, a list of these currencies is shown here. You then choose which currency the gift card should be created with. In our example we choose SEK.

Valid until

Here you choose how long the gift card will be valid. For example, one month, one year or 10 years. In our example we choose one year.

Important info when purchasing gift card items

If a customer has purchased a gift card product, the code will only be sent out after the order has been activated/debited. Go to Orders and click on the order. In the "Perform Action" box, make sure the "Mark as Paid" box is checked and then click on the green "Perform Selected Action" button. The order will then be marked as paid and the gift card will be activated and mailed out to the customer. The gift card code will then appear on the gift card product at the top of the order.

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