Shopify Gift Cards: A Unique way to boost your bottom line

Offering physical gifts to your loved ones may not always be adored by the one you are gifting. The reason behind this can be that they didn’t like what you gave, the gift you gave was useless to them and many more.

Therefore it would be preferable if you send them a physical gift card having some value. So that, your loved ones could buy anything of their choice using the gift card.

Well in the same way, if you offer your online store’s customer to buy digital gift cards option it would not solely increase your sales but also make your Shopify store more “gift giver friendly”.

Introduction to Shopify Gift-Cards

Shopify introduced the Gift-Cards option for all the Professional and Unlimited plan user in the year 2013.

Gift cards offer a versatile manner for your customers to get a present for somebody from your store, creating it simple for them to share their love for your brand while also maintaining full freedom of choice for the recipient.

As indicated by a study directed by the National Retail Federation, 81% of Americans will buy at least one gift card during the holidays. Indeed, about 70% of the customers who are receiving the gift cards, will spend more than the value on the card. It’s a win-win situation.

Shopify Gift Cards are extremely flexible and allows you to enhance the gift card experience on your site. As an example, you can:

Specify the price values available to your customers ($10,$25, $50, $75, or whatever)

• Personalize the email notification sent to your customers after purchase
• You can send your customers their gift card balance and manage gift cards in your Shopify admin.

How do they work?

When your online customer is making a purchase in your store they can redeem the value (amount of money or balance) of a gift card by entering its unique code at the time of checkout. A gift card holds a balance which can be used to spend over more than one order.

Shopify gift card offers you as a store owner to view and manage the status of each gift cards in your Shopify admin.

Some Requirements to sell and redeem Shopify gift card:

• You must have Shopify plan or higher. Basic Shopify plan is not supported to use the gift card.
• Need to activate the gift card feature in your Shopify admin to start selling.
• Go to Product > Gift Cards from your Shopify admin panel.
• Click on ‘Start selling gift cards on my store’.

You are done. Your first gift card is created immediately, but it is hidden from sales channels by default.

Shopify also offer you to sell and redeem physical gift cards, all you need is:

The Retail Package:

The retail package is meant to assist you to create a full retail store experience, so the majority of its features work only with Shopify POS for iPad.

If you use Shopify POS for iPhone, then you will be able to add the retail package to use a Swipe card reader with a supported third-party gateway and physical gift cards.

Physical gift Card Enable:

If your store is in the Shopify plan or higher and you have got the retail package, then you'll be able to purchase physical gift cards from the Shopify Hardware Store.

Sales Channel that supports gift card

Your online shopper can redeem their gift cards on any of your sales channels that use Shopify’s checkout :

• Online Store
• Buy Button
• Pinterest
• Facebook (when you use Shopify's checkout)
• Messenger (when you use Shopify's checkout)
• Shopify POS

For Facebook and Messenger sales channel, your customer won’t be able to use the gift card if you use Facebook’s checkout. They have to use the Shopify’s checkout to make use of gift cards.

Benefits to You and Your Customer

Today’s consumer adores digital Gift cards due to their instant deliverability. For the already occupied, last-minute shopper, sending gift cards to favorite local businesses may be a lifesaver for them.

Offering visitors of your online store the alternative to purchase a gift card for their friends and family is a sure fire way to participate in the season of giving and to give your sales a boost at the same time.

Here’s what your customers can do:

• Use the gift card multiple time.
• Use more than one gift card for a single purchase.
• Check their gift card balance by opening the unique link sent via email after purchase.
• Use gift cards jointly with other discount codes.

Many shoppers are more likely to buy gifts from your store if they know a gift card option is available. This can calm nervous buyers who aren’t quite sure about size, color or which item might be the best for the recipient.

When using gift cards many Shopify stores see a decrease in exchanges and returns. Since it’s difficult to select the right item (or size or color), letting the recipient choose it themselves means it’s less likely to get returned and since returns and exchanges can be very costly and time-consuming, the more you can cut down on those things, the better.

Conclusion :

Even if the gift card feature does require the Shopify plan or higher, many store owners see a significant return on this investment with a rise in gift sales. Additionally, the Shopify plan comes with advanced reporting tools and a lower process rate, so those features and the benefits of selling gift cards can often result in a big advantage for your business.