Documentation

Here are few guides for setting up the package for your store.

Enabling the Gift Cards payment method

Once you have installed the package, a new payment method is added to your payment methods called "Gift Card". You need to enable this payment method for your users to be able to use the gift cards, so before selling or sending any of them please remember to do this.

Basic Path to Creating Gift Cards

For creating the gift cards you need to follow few steps every time you create them (in some cases some of these are automated):

  1. Create the gift cards (disabled gift cards)
  2. Activate the gift cards (will delete the gift card passwords from the database and mark them active)
  3. Deliver the gift card codes (because the passwords are removed from the database, you always need to deliver the gift card coupons once you activate them)
  4. Give or deliver them to your customers

The delivery mechanism is easily extendable to your needs. You can even provide your customers automatic postal delivery if you integrate the system to a printing and mailing service.

It is also possible to sell the gift cards straight from your store. In this case you can also provide automatic delivery method for the cards that will be run once the order is placed and authorized.

I want to generate a bunch of codes and sell or give them to my cliends

The most usual case the package was designed for is that you want to generate a number of unique gift card codes that are only meant to be used by one customer. Therefore, this differs from the discount codes because you can provide each your customer their own code. Also, the system will keep track on how much value there is left on each gift coupon once purchases are made.

If you want to create some cards, e.g. 100 cards, just follow these steps:

  1. Add new Gift Card set, provide the options for the type of gift cards you need
    1. The "allow multiple usage" option means that you can allow each and single card to be usable multiple times or only once. If you enable this option, the card will still be usable if there is value left on it after the first purchase. So, the first purchse is below the gift card value.
  2. Just save the set, do not add any products to your set
  3. On the sets list, click "Manage Coupons" under the newly created set
  4. Under the section "Create New Gift Cards", provide the values that need to be provided and click "Add"
    1. Number of cards to be generated
    2. Gift card value, this is the actual value that the gift card is worth. Please note that if you want, you can sell the cards under their actual value, but once you create the cards, you always need to provide the system the actual value of the card.
  5. Click "Generate" and you will have your cards generated
  6. Your system will tell you that "You have X disabled coupons" and provide a button to activate them. Click on that button.
  7. Select the expiry option that you would like to apply to these cards
  8. Select the delivery method for the cards. By default there are available the following delivery methods:
    1. Email all the codes with their passwords to your email (for the user that is logged in) as CSV attachment, this is preferred
    2. Email all the codes with their passwords as plain text message to your email, this might be harder to handle for you than the first option
    3. Print out the codes with the passwords to a table on the site. Please note that if you use this method, the codes will be visible ONLY AND ONLY ONCE after you click "Activate and Deliver". After that, you cannot restore the passwords from any place because of the secured delivery method.
  9. Click "Activate and Deliver" and wait for the delivery to arrive to you with the selected method

After these steps the gift cards are enabled and can be used in your store with the Gift Card payment method.

I want sell gift cards straight from my store

If you want to sell the gift cards in your store, there's few things you need to do differently compared to the normal delivery method. You need to link the gift card set to a product, so you'll need to add a product to it. This is done as follows:

  1. Follow the steps 1-2 from the previous guide to create your gift card set
  2. After creating the set, click "Edit Set" from the sets list
  3. Below the normal options you see a link "Install a new product for this set", click on that
  4. Provide the needed information for the product to be added to your store. It is suggested to leave the product disabled at this point so that you can mange its pictures and custom attributes before making it visible for your customers.
    1. The value of the gift card means again the actual monetary value that you want to provide with this gift card to your customers. You can sell the cards with a different price from the value after adding the product and editing the product straight from your Products-tab.
    2. Automatic delivery method will make life easier for you. If you want to deliver the gift card codes to your customers right after they have bought them, just apply the automatic delivery method and you don't need to do anything to deliver the gift cards.
    3. If you want to deliver the card yourself, they will be marked as "ordered" after someone has purchased them. In this case, just leave the automatic delivery method to "No automatic delivery method"
  5. Save the product and edit the newly created product from your Products tab before enabling it to the store.

If you're delivering the gift cards manually, you need to check when orders are placed for your gift cards. It can help if you have email notifications on for anyone making an order in your store. Once a gift card has been ordered, you can go to the Gift Cards tab of your eCommerce dashboard and click "Manage Coupons" under the set where you have the product installed. Once orders have been made, you will see a message stating how many coupons have been ordered and you'll also see a button from which you can enable and deliver them all.

The gift card product integration also handles the product stock if you create the gift cards "on queue" before selling them. The disabled coupons with the same value as the linked product will be shown as stock for the linked product. Using the queue is suggested especially if you're selling lots of coupons but not necessary. If you don't have any disabled coupons with the right value available, a new one is created once the order is placed for that product.

Extending the delivery methods

Will be added soon...

This add-on provides an architecture with which you can easily write your own delivery methods for the gift cards. You can for example integrate the system to printing/mailing service or create fancy HTML emails for delivering the gift cards.

If you are interested in extending the delivery methods before the guide is added, please contact us with the forums or straight by a private message!