Gift cards are great tools as:
- They give you cashflow and you receive your money earlier, sometimes months or years earlier
- Your members will give away the cards to non-members and introduce your business to new patrons
- If the buyer does not use the gift card or its full amount, you get free money
Highlights of Ticketor Gift Cards
- You can create gift cards at different values like $50.00 or $100.00 gift cards
- You can offer gift cards for different occasions with different pictures. For example, a gift card for Mother’s Day and another for Valentine’s Day
- You can put the gift cards on sale. For example, you may have you $50.00 gift cards on sales for $45.00
- Buyers can apply multiple gift cards toward their final balance. For example, if the buyer’s total balance is $200, they can use a $50 gift card and a $100 gift card and the $15 remaining balance in another gift card and then pay the remaining balance of $35 using a credit card.
- Gift cards may have remaining balance and can be used in multiple transactions until the remaining balance is Zero. For example, if you have a $50 gift card and you use it in a $20 transaction, the gift card will have $30 balance that can be used for later purchases.
- Gift cards can be redeemed by the buyers online, or by your staff at the point of sale.
- Gift cards can be downloaded or printed after the purchase by the buyer
- Gift cards have a numeric code and a barcode. You can redeem the gift card by entering the numeric code in the gift card box or you can scan the barcode into the box at the point of sale.
- Gift cards do not expire automatically
Creating Gift Cards
Gift cards are a special type of merchandise and can be sold on a store-online type of page.
If you already don’t have a Store page or you want to create a dedicated page for gift cards, use the “Pages and Navigations” item in the “Account and Settings” panel of the “Control Panel” to add a new store page.
You can drag and drop the page to re-order the pages in the navigation area.
Then navigate to the store page.
Note: Gift cards and merchandises can be categorized in a directory or folder structure. If necessary, create categories to put the gift cards in those categories.
Click on add a new gift card button.
Enter a name for the gift card, optionally add a code for easier selection at the point of sale, set the gift card value or the initial balance of the gift card, and the sales price.
The sales price is usually equal to the gift card value but can be lower if the card is on sale.
Add some description and save the gift card.
You can also upload an image to be printed on the card.
Hint: Gift cards can apply to your whole site or they can apply to events by certain event organizers. In other words, event organizers who use your site may offer their own gift cards. If you select an Administrator in the “Event Organizer” box, the gift card will be valid for all the site, otherwise it will only apply to events for that event organizer.
Repeat this process to create as many gift cards at different values and for different occasions.
Hint: You can edit the gift card and change the sales price at any time to have the card on sale for a certain period of time.
Buying a Gift Card
Buyers can simply navigate to your store page, add as many gift cards to their shopping cart, then proceed to checkout and purchase the cards.
They will immediately receive the cards, with the gift card’s name, picture, amount and the gift card code. The code is shown both as a numeric value and also as a scannable barcode and QR code.
They can print the gift cards, or they can download it as an image file and share it with others.
Note: Gift cards can be purchased together with tickets, other merchandise and donations.
Using a Gift Card in a Purchase, Online, by the Buyer
The buyer can add any tickets, merchandise or donations to their shopping cart and proceed to the checkout page.
At the top of the checkout page, they can see their shopping cart, and the total amount due including any service charge or applicable taxes.
They can apply any coupon or promotion code they may have.
Eventually they will see the full remaining balance.
On the gift card box, they can enter the numeric code from the gift card and hit enter.
The system will apply the gift cards full balance to the purchase. The buyer can add as many other gift cards.
The applied gift cards show up as a list.
Clicking on the gift card number, opens up the “View gift card” pop up that shows the actual gift card, the buyer, original amount and remaining balance. The transactions tab shows all the transactions against the gift card.
If the gift cards cover the whole amount of the invoice, the buyer can simply click the reserve button and complete their purchase without any credit card.
If the gift cards are not enough to cover the full invoice amount, the buyer will need to pay the remaining balance using a credit card or PayPal account.
If the applied gift cards are more than the total amount of the invoice, the extra value will remain in the gift card for further purchases.
Using a Gift Card in a Purchase at the Point of Sale
Gift cards can similarly be used in the point of sales page for in-person transactions by your staff.
Your sales staff need to enter the gift card’s numeric code in the gift card box to use the gift card.
They can either manually type in the numeric code into the box or they can use a barcode scanner attached to their device to fill out the gift card number by scanning the barcode or the QR code.
Promoting Gift Cards by Adding Them to the Checkout Flow
Similar to events, donations and merchandise, gift cards can also get added to the pre-checkout page so as the buyers shop on your site, they will be asked to consider purchasing gift cards.
Managing Gift Cards
The admin can view all sold (issued) gift cards and their balances from the Control Panel by clicking on the “Gift Cards” item.
The list shows a list of all sold gift cards, as well as their initial balance and current balance with the ability to search for a card.
Clicking on the gift card, opens up the gift card that shows the actual gift card, initial amount, remaining balance and all the transactions against the gift card.
Accessing the Gift Cards by the Buyer
The buyer can always log in to their account and view their gift cards from the top menu by navigating to “My Gift Cards” menu item.
There they can see their gift cards and the balances and transactions and can print or download the gift card.
To get more information and to view the buyer and admin experience please check out this article
