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Gift Cards

5min

Introduction

Virtual gift cards are a great way to easily add additional products to your store and reach new audiences through your customers. With this feature, your customers can purchase one or more gift cards as part of their cart, optionally alongside other products, and send them to a recipient of their choice. They can select to send at a later date, can optionally add a Gift Message, and much more. Read on for how you can implement gift cards on your site.

How to create a Gift Card product



Look at the API documentation for implementing gift cards within your custom design.



You'll first need to create your product Gift Card in your Content Management System. Your Agency or developers can help you with it.



Here’s an example from our demo store



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Once your Gift Card has been created in either Contentful or Sanity (or any other CMS of your choice), navigate to the OMS and click on Products --> Search for Gift Card and click Edit.

Scroll down and look on the right inside. Verifyu that Gift Card is checked; this will ensure that no shipping cost is added to the virtual Gift Card.

As a precaution, verify that the information displayed accurately reflects what is in your CMS.





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Navigate to Product Stock tab and make sure that you have inventory (or at the very least marked as Backorderable)



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Purchasing a Gift Card



Once your Gift Cards are available on your site, customers will be able to select your pre-defined amount Gift Cards.



Currently we can only support Gift Cards with pre-defined amount



These virtual Gifts Cards are available for immediate delivery via email and can be scheduled up to a year in advance.



You can add multiple Gift Cards to your Cart



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You can combine an order made of Gift Cards and Products



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You can use a promo when buying a Gift Card



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Email Order Confirmation: An Order Confirmation email is sent to the Customer (Buyer) stating the Recipient’s email, the Amount sent, and the Delivery Date.



The email template can be customized and branded to your specifications



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Email Confirmation:

The Recipient gets an email notifying them they received a Gift Card



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Redeeming a Gift Card as a Guest - Not logged in

*Note on how we apply store credit:

Support for store credit in Stripe Checkout is still pending from Stripe, so we utilize a solution that avoids charging and refunding the customer the entire amount of store credit and avoids incurring excess Stripe fees



We prorate the store credit equally onto the items and shipment and add a 10% buffer in advance to cover any taxes that may arise. We then request Stripe to refund the customer the difference once Stripe informs us of the actual tax rate.

The amounts will show correctly on the order confirmation page, the email, the OMS and the Stripe dashboard once the order is complete.



We strongly recommend that you add a note on your cart to let your customers know about the prorate



Check with your agency, but here's an example



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If your customer has received a Gift Card and redeems it without being logged in and checks out with the email address the Gift Card was sent to



  • The customer will not see the available credit in their cart
  • The guest will not see the available credit in Checkout
  • Gift Card credit is applied after the Checkout completes to cover the entire order
  • The full payment in Stripe is refunded

Example:

Customer has received a $20 Gift Card and buys a $10 product + shipping and taxes while checking out as a guest (not logged in)



The Gift Card amount will be available in a form of a Store Credit

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Credit is not being applied in the Cart

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Credit is not being applied at Checkout



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Payment is immediately fully refunded



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In the OMS you can see that the order was actually paid with the Gift Card/Store Credit



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Confirmation email will display the correct payment method!







Redeeming a Gift Card when logged in



  • The customer will see the available credit in their cart
  • The customer will see a note in Checkout that their order is covered by credit. A processing fee is applied to the order that will be refunded after.
  • Gift Card credit is applied after the Checkout completes to cover the entire order
  • The processing fee is refunded in Stripe





Example 1 - Gift Card amount covers the order total:

Customer received a $25 Gift Card. That same customer buys a $25 product, in the example below, a gift Card for the cost of $25

The Checkout will prorate the 10% buffer $2.50

It looks like the customer will be charged $2.50 but looking at the order in the OMS all is accurate and no charges has been made



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In the OMS you will be able to see the transactions for the $5 and for the Gift Card



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Example 2: Gift Card Amount doesn't cover the order total



In this other example, the customer received a $75 Gift Card and purchases an $80 product

The Checkout will prorate the 10% buffer for each item $8.00 + $5 that will be charged (CC or any other payment methods you'd have available in your store



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In the OMS you will be able to see the transactions for the $5 and for the Gift Card



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The two transactions seen above for Store Credit, reflects the two Gift Cards received for that user.

FAQ



You can add a custom message below the shipping and billing address collection at checkout. For more information, please refer to the Environment Variables document





Purchasing



Can my customers buy multiple Gift Cards?

Yes, your customers can buy multiple Gift Cards alongside other products. Before checkout, your customers will be able to provide each email addresses for purchased each Gift Card.



Please note that these gift cards will have to be in various amounts; for example, a customer cannot select two gift cards of identical amounts to send to two different people.





Can my customers use Store Credit to buy a Gift Card?

Yes, Store Credit is a valid form of payment and be used to buy Gift Cards



Is there a character limit in the Gift Message customers can send?

While we support storing nearly any length of messages, we encourage you to set your own character limit when rendering the form on your website



Can customers pay with a Gift Card and another form of payment?

Gift cards work like store credit. Once your customers have been gifted, the credit will be applied to their associated email address to redeem. The amount will automatically apply to their next purchase. If they do not have enough store credit in their account to complete the purchase, they can pay the remaining balance with their credit card.



Redeeming



How do my customers redeem their Gift Card?

These are the steps to redeem a Gift Card

Open the gift card confirmation email (You Have a Gift!). Find and click the ‘Redeem’ link.

Customers will be directed to your site and should log in

When they are ready to make a purchase, the credit will automatically deduct during the last step of checkout before selecting “Submit”



Can we redeem and apply the customer's Gift Card when placing a manual order in the OMS?

Yes, you can place an order on behalf of the customer



Can customers redeemed their Gift Card more than once?

If there aren't any credit remaining on the Gift Card, your customers will not be able to redeem it more than once.



Do the Gift Cards expire?

No, since the Gift Card is a Store Credit it will not expire



Where in the OMS can I see if a customer has a Gift Card to Redeem?

In the OMS navigate to the User's page --> Users --and click the arrow next to Subscriptions

Click Redeem Gift Card



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and enter the Identifier (found on the order)

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and click Create

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Troubleshooting

Redeeming



What happens if my customers provide a valid but incorrect email address?

Option 1* - In the OMS you can update the email address on the Gift Card and resend the email. (The recipient will still need to create an account if they don't have one)*

Option 2*- You can use the identifier to create the store credit in the OMS in the Users section: (An account can be created by the Admin for the user if the user does not exist as of yet)



Will the Gift Card be redeemable once it has been canceled?

In order to ensure that your Gift Card is not redeemable if the order needs to be canceled is to Deactivate the Gift Card

In the OMS: Go to the order that contains the Gift Card and click on the Shipment tab.

Click Edit Details link right below the Identifier and on the next page click Deactivate. Then proceed with Canceling the order



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Can customers redeemed their Gift Card more than once?

If there aren't any credit remaining on the Gift Card, your customer will not be able to redeem it more than once



What happen if a customer has a Gift Card but cannot redeem it?

Reasons why a customer cannot redeem their Gift Card vary, it might have been deactivated, previously redeemed or they aren't logged in and do not have an account, or are using a different email than the one sent to them

Reach out to us once you have tried the above and we will help us investigate - In the alternative you can always apply a Store Credit to your customer



*Gift Card credit will not apply ***when shopping in guest checkout



Shipping/Delivery



Can my customers select a later date to send my Gift Card?

Yes, customers can choose to send their Gift Card along with the notification (email) at a later date of their choice



Are there any shipping fees on a Gift Card?

No, there aren’t any shipping fees associated with the purchase of a Gift Card.



Customer never received the email notifying them that a Gift Card was sent to them. Can we send them an email?

Yes! you can resend the email by navigating to the Gift Card order

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Click on Edit Details and on the next page click on Send email now

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The email is resent!





Purchasing



Can my customers select a different amount other than what’s displaying for a Gift Card? 

You can create variants in your CMS to reflect the amount(s) you want your customers to select. At this time there isn't the ability for a customer to select their own amount.



What happens if my customer enters an invalid email address? 

An error message will display letting your customers know that the email provided is not valid



Why do our customers have to enter their Credit Card info to purchase a product that their Gift Card amount will cover?

You will have to enter a valid credit card during the payment step of checkout to complete the process, but don’t worry!

Before placing your order, you will see your adjusted total with the credit applied



Canceling



The order was canceled but the customer was able to redeem their Gift Card why?

In order to ensure that your Gift Card is not redeemable if the order needs to be canceled is to Deactivate the Gift Card

A potential solution would be the cancel the order that was placed using that Gift Card



Can you Reactivate a Deactivated Gift Card?

Once a Gift Card has been deactivated you cannot reactivate it. You can apply a Store Credit to that customer if the Gift Card was deactivated by mistake

For more information about Store Credit, pease refer to this manual





if you have any questions or need help, please reach out to us at help@chord.co



Updated 02 May 2023
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
How to create a Gift Card product
Purchasing a Gift Card
Redeeming a Gift Card as a Guest - Not logged in
Redeeming a Gift Card when logged in
FAQ
Troubleshooting