Online Gift Card Manual

How to sell gift cards online for customers to use in-store

Rebecca avatar
Written by Rebecca
Updated over a week ago

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Did you know that you can sell gift cards online? The customer purchasing the gift card can e-mail the gift card directly to the destined recipient. It can be used in-store straight away!

Here's how you do it:

  1. Contact the Abacus Team to set up the Loyalty Marketing Module for your account

  2. Sign up to Stripe Payment

  3. Set up your E-mails

  4. Start selling

  5. Redeem gift cards

  6. Track gift cards

Note: Gift cards that are purchased online must be redeemed in-store, not online.

Set up Loyalty Marketing

First, get in touch with the Abacus team so that you can be signed up to the Loyalty Marketing module. Online Gift Cards are only available to businesses subscribed to Loyalty marketing.

Sign up to Stripe Payment

You will need to provide your account details so that funds are disbursed to your account when customers purchase your gift cards online.

  1. In the POS module, go to Online Ordering > Stripe Payment Setup

  2. Click Setup

  3. In the popup, follow the prompts to sign up to Stripe

Set up your Online Gift Card Store

  1. Go to Loyalty Marketing > Vouchers and Gift Cards > Online Gift Card Settings

2. Confirm that you have a Seller ID (Abacus Payments).

If you believe you have already created an account, but you see the words "Create Account" instead of an alphanumeric code (your Seller ID), contact the Abacus Support team.

3. If you do not already have a Logo or Company Profile Image, click Upload and select them.

These images will be used in the online store as such:

4. Now we will create your gift cards. Under MENU, click Add

5. You will be prompted to create a new product called "Gift Card". Enter the name, price (value), and any description if desired, then click Save.
Note: If you have more than one value gift card (e.g. $25, %50, $100) we recommend you rename your gift cards to differentiate between them in your reporting, e.g. "$50 Gift Card" instead of just "Gift Card".

6. The gift card will appear in the table

7. Repeat for any other gift cards you want to create. Click the pencil button if you want to edit a gift card.

8. Drag and drop the gift cards if you want to rearrange their sequence

Note: these products will also be created under your Products list, with the Product Code GC-00001, GC-00002, etc. Once you have created an online gift card, you can also add it to your POS Menu to sell in-store -- in this case, make sure you also follow these instructions.

Set up your E-mails

  1. Go to Loyalty Marketing > Vouchers and Gift Cards > Online Gift Card Settings

  2. Look at the text next to these templates:

  • If you see a link saying "Create Template" or "Edit Template" next to any of these template names, those templates don't exist in your system yet. Continue to the next step.

  • If you see a link saying anything else, such as, "Sent when Gift Card Order is received", those templates do exist in your system. The text will vary according to what description has been set for each template. Click the link and skip to step 6.

3. If you click Edit Template, you will be redirected to the Email Templates page. Click Create Default Email Templates > Add Missing Templates

4. Three new email templates will be created with these subjects:

  • Gift Card Invoice [Invoice] from [CompanyName] - the invoice 

  • You have received a [CompanyName] Gift Card for the gift card recipient

  • Online Gift Card Template for the gift card pdf

These may not appear in the same place on your list, so do a search (CTRL/COMMAND + F) to find these templates.

5. Click the pencil button next to Gift Card Invoice [Invoice] from [Company Name] for your invoice email template.

6. Edit the body of the email using the editor. There will be some text to get you started. The image at the top is a placeholder for your logo, so you don't need to change it.

You must ensure that your Invoice email template complies with the invoicing standards of your country (e.g. see How to create an invoice if you operate in Australia).

These are the placeholders:

  • [Invoice] - the invoice number of the gift card order

  • [CreatedOn] - the date the order was placed

  • [Address], [Suburb], [State], [Postcode], [Country], [OfficePhone], [ContactEmail] - your company's details (set in Configuration > Company Profile > Contact > Primary)

  • [CompanyName], [Website], [ABN] - your company's name, web address and registration number (set in Configuration > Company Profile > Basic Info) 

  • [Firstname], [Lastname] - the customer's name (provided upon checkout)

  • [ExpiredOn] - the expiry date for the gift card

  • [Total], [Items], [Tax] - the gift card order details

7. You can also change the email address and sender name, and enter your own email address under CC if you wish to also receive a copy of the invoice when it comes through.

8. Click Save when you have finished editing your invoice template.

9. Repeat steps 5-8 to edit your gift card recipient's email template with the subject "You have received a [CompanyName] Gift Card"

There will be additional placeholders:

  • [To] - the intended gift card recipient (provided by the customer upon checkout)

  • [From] - the customer purchasing the gift card (provided upon checkout)

Click Save after any changes.

10. Lastly, you will need to review your Online Gift Card Template, which is rendered as a pdf each time a customer orders a gift card.

Click Save after any changes.

These templates can be accessed at any time through:

  • Configuration > Email Templates 

  • Loyalty Marketing > Vouchers and Gift Cards > Online Gift Card Settings

Start selling!

With your gift cards, web store, and e-mails sorted, you're ready to start selling gift cards!

The gift card will always be sent to the buyer, but a copy of the gift card can also be sent to the recipient if they put in their email address.

Retrieve QR code

If you need to retrieve the QR code for the gift card, click the code in the table and you will be able to save the QR code on the next page.

View your gift card sales

Invoice

Go to Loyalty Marketing > Vouchers and Gift Cards > Vouchers and Gift Cards to see all gift cards that have been created for each gift card sale.

Go to POS > Sales > Invoices and click the pencil button to see the actual invoice containing the gift card. Online gift card purchases will specify Online Payments as the payment method.

Gift card sales will not appear in your sales reports e.g. Sales Activity

Gift card details

Go to Vouchers and Gift Cards > Vouchers and Gift Cards to see the gift card details. From left to right, these are:

  • Code: the unique code of the gift card, so you can track its usage

  • Product: what you called the gift card when you made it as a product

  • Amount: the original amount of the gift card

  • Balance: the current amount on the gift card

  • Expiry: when the gift card will no longer be valid

  • Created On: when the gift card order was made

  • Voucher Type: gift card (multiple use) or voucher (single use)

  • Active: whether a gift card has been activated (through being purchased)("Discount" and "Used" fields are for single-use vouchers only)

Redeem gift cards

  1. On the Payment screen, tap Gift Card.

2. Scan the QR code of the gift card using the iPad's camera.

You must enable permission for Abacus to use the camera to scan the QR code, otherwise input the gift card number manually by pressing the grey box under "Gift Card Number"

3. The card balance, card spend, and balance remaining will be updated. Press Done.

If your customer does not want to use the whole value of their gift card, untick Maximum and change the amount that the customer wants to spend on the gift card.

4. Pay any balance remaining

5. Press Complete sale

Track gift cards

Go to Loyalty Marketing > Vouchers and Gift Cards > Transactions to see each time a gift card is redeemed.

Go to POS > Sales > Invoices for the corresponding invoices. Invoices that have been fully paid by Gift Card will list it as the mode of Payment. Invoices that have had mixed payment (e.g. gift card and cash) will display the alternative form of payment.

Scroll right to click the pencil button to see the full invoice details.

On the Invoice Details page, scroll down to see the Payment History, which will break down exactly how much of the order was paid by gift card, and how much of it was paid through other forms of payment.

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