Sell and issue gift cards

Sell gift cards in your store, issue them by hand, and let shoppers pay with them at checkout.

A gift card holds a balance that a shopper spends in your store with a code. You can sell gift cards like any other product, or issue one by hand – for example, to make up for a late order. At checkout a gift card is a way to pay, not a discount: it pays the order total, tax and shipping included, and the shopper pays whatever is left with their usual payment method.

You'll find everything under Catalog → Gift cards in your dashboard.

How gift cards work

Sell gift cards in your store

1. Go to Catalog → Gift cards and click Add gift card product.
2. YNS creates a draft product called "Gift card" with a Value option of 10, 25, 50 and 100 in your store currency, and opens it in the product editor.
3. Change the name, description, images and values the way you like. Each variant is one card value – add, remove or reprice them as you would any variant. A value must be above 0 and at most 10,000.
4. Publish the product when you're ready.

A gift card product is marked with a Gift card badge in the editor, and a few things work differently from a normal product:

• It doesn't ship. The Ships box is off and can't be turned on, so a cart holding only gift cards needs no delivery address or shipping method.
• It tracks no stock. You never run out of gift cards.
• No tax at sale. A gift card is a multi-purpose voucher, so VAT is charged on what it's later spent on, not on the card itself. The tax rate picker is replaced by a note saying so.

Note: Whether a product is a gift card is set when it's created and can't be changed later. To sell gift cards, start from Add gift card product rather than editing an existing product.

Sending a gift card to someone else

When a shopper buys a gift card, they can add who it's for. All of these are optional:

Two gift cards of the same value for different people show as separate lines in the cart, each with its own recipient. The checkout summary and the customer's order page list these details under clear labels, with the send date in the shopper's own language.

What happens after the purchase

The card is created only once the order is paid – one card for each gift card in the order. The recipient gets a "New gift card" email with the code, the balance and a link to the card's balance page, on the send date they picked. The buyer gets your normal order confirmation, where the gift card is an ordinary line without its code.

If the email can't be delivered, the order shows the problem in its history and in Issues, and you can send it again from the card's page (see below).

Issue a gift card by hand

1. Go to Catalog → Gift cards and click Issue gift card.
2. Enter the Amount, up to 2,000 in the chosen currency.
3. If your store sells in several currencies, pick the Currency the card is spent in.
4. Optionally set an Expiry date – leave it empty for a card that never expires.
5. Optionally enter an address under Send to customer email: the card and its code are emailed there as soon as it's issued.
6. Optionally add a Note for your team, such as why the card was issued. Customers never see it.
7. Click Issue gift card.

Important: The full code is shown only once, right after you issue the card. Click Copy code and send it to the customer before you leave the page. After that, you and your team only ever see the last four characters – just like a payment card.

If you entered an email and it couldn't be sent, the page tells you so. The card is still issued and the code is still on screen, so you can copy it and send it yourself.

Find and manage gift cards

The Gift cards list shows every card with its last four characters, customer, status, balance (what's left out of the starting value), currency, expiry and issue date.

• Use the All, Active, Expired and Deactivated tabs to filter by status.
• Use the Balance filter to show cards that are Unused, Partly used or Used up.
• Search by a card's last characters or its whole code.

Click a card to open its page. There you can:

• See the balance and history. The History table lists every time the card was issued, spent, refunded to or deactivated, with links to the orders involved. An amount marked on hold is held for a checkout in progress; released means that checkout didn't go through and the money is back on the card.
• Change the expiry date. Move it later to make an expired card usable again, or clear it for a card that never expires.
• Edit the note.
• Resend email to send the recipient the code, balance and balance page link again.
• Deactivate the card. This can't be undone.

You need permission to view the catalog to see gift cards, and permission to edit it to issue, change or deactivate them – see Team members.

How shoppers pay with a gift card

At checkout, shoppers enter the code in the Discount code or gift card field (it's labeled that way once your store has issued its first card). The card appears in the order summary as "Gift card •••• 1234" with a button to remove it, and the summary shows the Amount due below the total – what's still left to pay after the cards.

• If the cards cover the whole order, there's nothing else to pay: the shopper fills in their details, sees "Paid with gift cards" and clicks Place order.
• If they cover part of it, the shopper pays the rest with their card or wallet as usual.

Customers can see their balance at any time:

• Every card has a balance page, linked from its email, showing the balance, starting value, code, expiry and status.
• Signed-in customers find all their cards under Gift cards in their account, with what's left on each.

When a gift card can't be used

Shoppers see a clear message at checkout when a card can't be applied. A gift card can't be used:

• on a card that has expired, been deactivated or has no balance left,
• on an order in a different currency from the card,
• to buy another gift card,
• on an order that includes a subscription,
• more than five cards on one order.

Gift cards work with the Stripe checkout. While a gift card is applied, bank transfer, cash on delivery, PayPal and saved cards aren't offered, and checkouts run through another provider – such as Przelewy24, PayNow, Montonio or Frame – don't accept gift cards. Gift cards also aren't available in stores where Stripe Tax calculates the taxes.

To protect your cards from guessing, a shopper who enters too many codes that don't exist is asked to try again in an hour.

How gift card payments show on orders

On the order page, the order email, the customer's account and the invoice, gift cards appear as a payment under the full order total – one "Gift card •••• 1234 −$20.00" row per card, then what the shopper's own payment method was charged. An order paid entirely with gift cards says "Paid in full with gift cards". The order total, the VAT and the invoice amounts stay the full price, because a gift card pays for the order rather than discounting it.

Refunds

When you refund an order that was paid partly or fully with gift cards, the money goes back to the gift cards first, up to what they paid, and the rest to the shopper's payment method. A deactivated card takes nothing back.

Refunding a gift card purchase deactivates the cards that order created – as many as you refund. If a card was already partly spent, the order history shows how much, since that part isn't taken back by the refund.

Gift cards and loyalty points

Buying a gift card doesn't earn loyalty points: selling a card isn't a sale of goods yet. Points are earned when the card is spent on products, just like with any other payment method.

FAQ

What's next

• Set up your catalog in Add a product.
• Run codes alongside gift cards with Coupons & discounts.
• Learn how money goes back in Refunds & returns.