Working with gift cards

The Xperience E-commerce Solution allows you to define coupon-based gift cards. If you create a gift card and generate coupon codes, your customers can use the codes to reduce or completely cover the final price of their orders. In other words, gift cards can be considered as a form of payment.

When calculating the final price of a shopping cart or order, the system subtracts the value of applied gift cards after processing all other types of discounts, shipping costs and taxes. If the gift card value is greater than the order’s price, the remaining amount is saved for the given coupon code and can be redeemed in future orders.

You can use gift cards to motivate customers to purchase more products. For example, gift cards are particularly suitable:

• During special seasons, for example Christmas
• As a reward for customers who spend a certain amount of money in your store or buy selected products

Gift cards are dynamically configurable, and you can adjust them via rules and conditions according to your needs. These rules are based on properties of the customer’s shopping cart and can include the cart content, billing/shipping address, order currency, etc. You can also specify periods of validity.

Managing gift cards

To create new gift cards or edit existing ones

1. Open the Gift cards application.

2. To add a new gift card, click New Gift card. To edit an existing gift card, click Edit () next to the given item in the list.

3. Set the gift card’s properties:

   General
   Name	The name of the gift card displayed in the administration interface, shopping cart, invoices, etc.
   Code name	The unique identifier of the gift card (for example used by developers in custom code). Unless there is a reason to set a particular value, you can leave the default (automatic) option, and the system generates an appropriate code name automatically.
   Description	You can add an explanation about the scenarios for which the gift card is intended. The description does not affect the gift card’s functionality, apart from providing information to store managers working in the Gift cards application.
   Enabled	Indicates whether the gift card is available for use by customers. If the check box is cleared, the gift card cannot be redeemed.
   Gift card value
   Amount	Specifies the exact value of the gift card. The amount must be a valid decimal number greater than 0. Enter the value in the site’s main currency. When a customer redeems one of the gift card’s coupon codes during checkout, the system subtracts the amount from the total price of the order. If the gift card amount is greater than the order’s price, the remainder is stored for the given coupon code, and it can be redeemed in future orders (with a reduced value equal to the remaining amount). Note: You cannot change the Amount value for gift cards that already have coupon codes added on the Coupons tab. In these cases, you need to create a completely new gift card.
   Gift card conditions
   Minimum order amount	Specifies the minimum price total that orders must have for the gift card to be applicable. The price is evaluated after the system calculates all discounts and adds shipping costs and taxes to the order total. Set the value in the site’s main currency. If you leave an empty value, all orders are eligible for the gift card unless limited by the Further conditions field.
   Further conditions	Adds further conditions that must be fulfilled for the system to accept the gift card. Click Edit to open the Edit macro condition dialog, which allows you to add conditions through a graphical interface. To add rules to the condition, double-click rules on the right or click Add rule. To remove a rule from the condition, select it and click Delete. Click Clear all rules to remove all added rules. Click on underlined words in the rule text to configure various rule options: If you are a developer, conditions are Xperience macros, and you can edit them directly on the Code tab in the Edit macro condition dialog.
   Duration
   Valid from	Specifies the time and date from which the gift card can be redeemed. If you leave the value empty, the gift card is valid at any time before the Valid to date.
   Valid to	Specifies the time and date until which the gift card can be redeemed. If you leave the value empty, the gift card is valid permanently (starting from the Valid from date).
   Target customers
   Available for	Determines which types of users are able to use the gift card: All visitors – all customers can use the gift card. Registered users – only registered customers can use the gift card. Registered users in selected roles – only registered customers in selected roles can use the gift card. To add roles: Click Select to open the Select roles dialog. Select the required roles. Click Select. You can add registered customers to roles in the Customers application while editing customers on the Roles tab.

4. Click Save.

5. Create or generate coupon codes on the Coupons tab. For more information, see: Working with coupon codes

If enabled and valid, the gift card can be redeemed by customers during checkout or applied by store administrators when editing orders. You can now distribute the coupon codes among your customers via any available communication channels.

For gift cards, every coupon code represents a single voucher with a value equal to the gift card’s Amount. When redeemed, the coupon code is either fully used up, or if the gift card value is greater than the order’s price, the remainder is saved for the given coupon code. While the remaining value is greater than zero, the coupon code can be redeemed again in other orders (with a reduced value).

Allowing customers to enter coupon codes

Learn how to add coupon code input fields to pages in Adding coupon code inputs to pages.

Displaying gift card values to customers

In invoices and other e-commerce notification emails, you can show the values of redeemed gift cards by including the {%OtherPayments%} or {%OtherPaymentsSummary%} macros in the corresponding templates.

Handling payments fully covered by gift cards

If you distribute gift cards without setting an appropriate Minimum order amount, customers may create orders where the value of a redeemed gift card exceeds the total price. In these cases, the gift card fully covers the payment and the final price of the order is zero. Many payment methods reject payments whose value is zero, which may be confusing for customers.

For these situations, we recommend adjusting your site to skip the payment page of your checkout process and directly display the “Thank you” or “Order completed” page. See Building the order review step for more information.