Gift cards are a product type. Each gift card has its face value that your customers can pay their orders with its balance when they purchase from your store. You can either distribute free gift cards to customers as a reward, promotion, or incentive/create gift card products, and make them available for sale in your store. The gift card information will be sent to customers via email or SMS.

 

In This Article

• Creating Gift Card Products
• Distributing Free Gift Cards
• Managing Gift Cards
• How Customers Use Gift Cards

 

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Creating Gift Card Products

You create and manage gift card products in the Products module.

1. From your SHOPLINE admin panel, go to Products > Gift cards.
2. Click the Create a gift card button in the upper right corner.
   
3. Provide the information to help customers find the product you sell and better present the product on the storefront. In addition to the product title, you may also need to enter some product details, including product description, images, search engine optimization, etc.
   
4. In the Gift value settings section, configure the face value of the gift card. The system already provides 4 default face values: $10, $25, $50 and $100. Click + Add to add a new face value, click the minus icon to remove a face value, and click into the field to modify the face value. The face values are the product variants and also the pricing when customers browse and pay for the products. Different countries or regions have different legal regulations on the face value of gift cards. If the face value exceeds the prescribed upper limit, the gift card product may be subject to the supervision of local payment institutions. Therefore, please review the relevant regulations of your country or region before setting the face value to avoid penalties for violations.
   
5. In the Collections section, click Add new to assign a product collection to the gift card. Just like any other product, you can add the gift card product to a manually created collection or a smart collection (if enabled). Click Update once you finish your selection.
   
6. Set up the sales channels and turn on the Activate toggle to make the gift card product available for sale. Please note that by default, the gift card product is hidden from your active sales channels and won't be published in the product catalog when created. Ensure to publish it in one or more active sales channels to begin selling.
   
7. Click Add to finish the creation of the gift card.

Your newly created gift card products appear in the product list. Click the eye icon of a gift card product to preview how its product page appears.

There are two portals to view and edit gift card products:

• On the Products page, click More filters and select Gift card to filter the gift card products. Then you can click on the gift card product you want to manage.
  
• On the Gift cards page, click View gift card products. The system leads you to the same page that appears when you follow the first approach.
  

 

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Distributing Free Gift Cards

You can also send free gift cards with specific values to your customers. Follow the steps below:

1. From your SHOPLINE admin panel, go to Products > Gift cards.
2. Click the Send gift card button in the upper right corner.
   
3. In the details page, navigate to the Card value section > the Gift card code field to customize the code (if needed).

• By default, the system creates a random code for this gift card.
• You can also define the code based on customer names, marketing campaigns, holiday events, etc... For example, you can create a custom code “happynewyear.”
• The custom code supports 8-20 characters in length and only digits and lower-cased English alphabets for now.

4. You can specify the value of the gift card in the Gift card value field.

• You need to set the value. The customer can use the gift card to pay for their order in the store and the order amount will be deducted from the gift card.
• It’s your responsibility to review the relevant regulations of the target country or region before setting the face value to avoid penalties for violations.

5. In the Expiry date section, configure if the gift card expires.

• If the gift card expires, select Set expiry date and specify a date. The gift card will expire on the next day of the expiry date (by the time zone of the store). For example, if you set the expiry date to February 1, 2024, the gift card will expire at 0:00 on February 2, 2024.
• Different countries or regions have different legal regulations on the expiry date of gift cards. Please review the relevant regulations of your country or region before setting the date.

6. (Optional) Click into the Select or create customers field and select an existing customer, or create a new customer profile. You can leave this field blank and add customer information later.
7. Once you have finished the configuration, click the Add button to send the gift card to the customer.
   

To view the details of the distributed gift cards, click a gift card on the Gift cards page to view the information. You can only see the last four characters of the code. In the gift card details page, you can view the following information:

• Balance of the gift card
• Creation date of the gift card
• Expiry date
• Notes you add to the gift card
• Usage history of the gift card

 

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Managing Gift Cards

You can view and manage distributed or sold gift cards on the Products > Gift cards page.

Searching for Gift Cards

You can search for gift cards by code or by customer. Click on the search bar and enter your search terms. To search for a complete gift card code, please enter the code without any space.

Filtering Gift Cards

If you want to find gift cards that match specific criteria, filtering is a useful method. For example, you can filter by status to list all disabled gift cards.

Click the More filters button and select from the filters.

The available filters are as follows:

• Status: to display the Enabled, Expires soon, Disabled, or Expired gift cards.
• Balance: to display the gift cards based on usage (Full balance or partial balance, Full balance, Partial balance, or Zero balance).
• Value: to display the gift cards whose face value is within the specified range.
• Date: to display the gift cards based on the date when they were distributed. 
• Distribution methods: to display the gift cards based on whether they were distributed, purchased, or generated by third-party apps.

Sorting Gift Cards

If you want to find gift cards that match specific criteria, sorting is a useful method. For example, you can sort the gift cards by the expiry date in ascending order to quickly find the one that is approaching its expiry date.

Viewing Gift Card Details

You can click any of the gift cards to enter its details page. On the gift card details page, you can view information like the balance, the associated order number, the name of the customer who purchased the gift card, and its expiry date.

Distributing Gift Cards via Email or SMS Messages

When creating free gift cards, If you have selected a customer, the customer will automatically receive an email or SMS message with the gift card. 

After the customer purchases a gift card product from your store, you can go to the order details page and click the Send gift card button to send an email or SMS message with the gift card.

If the customer doesn't receive the email or SMS message with the gift card, you can click on the gift card details page and click the Resend button in the Assigned customers section, or select multiple gift cards in the Gift cards list and click the Resend button.

Disabling Gift Cards

You can disable a gift card to void it. You can click into the gift card details page and click the red Disable button, or select multiple gift cards in the Gift cards list and click the Disable gift card button.

Exporting Gift Cards

You can export the gift card details by clicking Export at the top of the Gift cards page. The exported file is CSV formatted, so you can view the details in a spreadsheet application. This is useful if you want to view the balance or other information. However, it is not supported to create gift card products by importing a CSV file.

Configuring Common Gift Card Settings

In Settings > Gift Card, you can configure common settings that will be inherited when you create new gift cards in the future.

In the Automatic expiration section, you can set how long gift cards will expire after being purchased/distributed. However, different countries or regions may have different legal regulations regarding the expiry date of gift cards. It’s your responsibility to review the relevant regulations of the target country or region before changing the expiry period.

In the ​​Gift Card Display section, you can choose whether to display the QR code or the barcode on the gift card.

 

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How Customers Use Gift Cards

Customers can use the balance of a valid gift card to make the payment during their checkout. The balance will then be deducted from the order amount. If a customer has multiple gift cards, they can be stacked. To use their gift cards, customers follow the steps below:

1. Customers receive the gift card codes by email or SMS.
2. Customers enter the gift card codes on the checkout page and the available balance will be deducted from the order.