Gift Card Workflow On Your Magento Store

Gift Card Workflow On Your Store

Statistics in recent year have showed that the consumption of gift vouchers increased dramatically, especially digital certificates. In 2017, the number of people purchased or received at least a gift card in the US reached approximately 95%. Among them, several users even consumed up to 7 gift vouchers yearly. Also in 2015, gift certificate is voted to be the most favorable present during shopping season. It can be seen that, the convenience and advantages of owning a gift certificate are setting a new trend in the way people perform shopping behaviors. So why does a gift card work to help creating a sense of satisfaction among consumers like this? Let take a look at the following post to fully understand the workflow of a gift voucher from when it is purchased to when it is used to shop or redeem.

Gift Card for Magento 2

Enhance customer loyalty through convenient and flexible gift card solutions

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Identify the voucher’s theme

Gift voucher extensions equips online merchants with various options about theme so that they can easily satisfy customer’s demands. Some of the most popular themes can be listed as Black Friday, New Year, Christmas, Halloween, Mother and Father day, and so on.

After that, shopping doers are encouraged to select the appropriate picture for their cards based on their tastes and preferences. For each theme, there are a bunch of beautiful-designed images available for buyers. Additionally, consumers are allowed to upload their own wishing image to personalize their cards. Many customers are really happy with this function as when the card is used to present to another, it will be more special and meaningful.

Determine the gift card value

After deciding the main theme for the gift certificate, buyers need to define the value of gift vouchers they want to possess. Normally, there are two options for shopping doers to select, one is a list of fixed prices and the other is customer field box which allows buyers to enter their wishing prices. However, there are some online merchants which their configurations only accept consumer’s selection among fixed prices. Besides, the store is also the one who decides the valued currency for the cards such as US Dollar.

Provide required information

We all know that gift certificates exist in two different forms: physical and digital gift. Customers when decide to purchase either a physical or a virtual gift card or a combined one, are also asked to fill in information about sender and receiver. With Magento 2 gift certificate extension, there are four ways applied to deliver a gift card, namely email, text message, and print gift card at home.

Email

If consumers decide to send the present via email, they have to provide recipient email, both sender and recipient name. Besides, customers are enable to attach message and decide date and time that the gift voucher is sent to their beloveds by filling in Delivery Date and Time zone fields.

Text message

When text message is the method that is chosen by buyers to deliver gift certificate, phone number of recipient is the integral part in requirement fields. Moreover, names of sender and receiver are also required. Like email, this dispatch method allows users to write message to their friends and manage time that gift cards will be sent.

Post office

To be able to dispatch gift certificate via post office, the sender has to fill in his name and receiver’s name. Message attached and Delivery Date are also personalized by consumers.

Print at home

With this delivery methods, users only need to provide information about sender and recipient name, and type message.

Decide the quantity of gift cards purchased

There is one more thing that users need to pay attention to finish shopping card. As Mageplaza gift cards extension has no limitation for the number of gift certificates created by buyers; therefore, they can decide the quantity following their demands.

After finishing all information required, gift vouchers are listed in the card with detail information attached about buyers, receivers, and messages. The value of the card decided by customers will be transferred into the base currency of the online merchant once buyers want to check out. Before finishing this step, purchasers can preview to see how the certificate look like and think twice to change or adjust the card such as the amount of value, the image, or the attached message. After all, do not forget to click on Add to Cart button, then move to checkout page and finish buying session.

Deliver gift certificate to recipient

Depending on what delivery methods that buyers choose, the gift vouchers will be sent to receivers in different ways. With the physical gift voucher, it can be sent to either buyer or receiver depending on customer’s demand. If card purchaser wants to hand the certificate to their beloveds themselves, they can choose to receive the gift card.

If not, the store will take the responsibility to dispatch their gift to the recipient. For virtual or combined gift vouchers, an email with gift card code, name of sender, and message will be sent to receiver simply after a click. Additionally, after dispatching the present to recipient, an SMS notification will be sent to him to remind him of the appearance of the gift voucher.

With Magento 2 Gift Card extension, users can also set exact date and time that they want their cards to be sent without any difficulty. This useful function is favorable by almost every buyer as they can surprise their friends or family members when they are thousand miles apart from their beloveds.

Use gift cards to purchase

If the recipient receive a physical gift certificate, he can bring the voucher along to the stores that accept the card to shop directly. Otherwise, when a digital voucher is sent to recipient, he has to access to the online system and sign in or create a new account to manage and use his card. After signing in, card owners can manage their gift vouchers by click on My Gift Cards option.

Manage gift certificates

In the product page of Manage gift certificates functions, there are three main components that can be adjusted or managed by users. At the top of the page, web browsers can check or redeem their gift codes by filling in the checking box.

My saved gift cards

In this setting, customers can easily take an overview about all their gift vouchers concerning Code, Balance, Status, and Expired Date. By displaying these information, consumers can select the appropriate vouchers to shop for goods. The codes are highly confidential as only card owners can see full symbols of these chains of codes. Otherwise, they are presented under the X symbols. Moreover, there are also some actions that can be performed here such as view, redeem, print, and remove. Only active cards that still have valued money have redeem button. With the already used codes or expired codes, customers can choose Remove button to delete the gift codes from table row.

By clicking on View button, more details about each gift code including actions have been done to the code will be showed in time order. Furthermore, print option enables owners to print a paper card to purchase at the bricks and mortals. It means that even though customers receive a virtual certificate, they can treat it as a physical voucher by printing it.

Transaction

This table provides users with detail information about all their shopping behaviors that using their gift vouchers. It can be said that this function help customers to manage their certificates as well as shopping activities more wisely.

Notification settings

It is necessary for any customer to turn on Gift card update notification and Update balance notification to get the most up-to-date information regarding their gift voucher and balance to shop online.

Apply gift codes to checkout

Regardless of physical gift cards as it is used directly at the stores, with virtual gift vouchers, customers can fill in Apply gift code field to use their certificates. Moreover, card owners can use one gift card to purchase several times as long as the card still has valued money. Every time the card is used for payment, the amount of money needed will be presented and subtracted from the total amount. All the shopping activities will be recorded in the management page as shown above.

In conclusion, the appearance of gift vouchers has positive effects on human life in the way we present a gift to someone. Using a digital or even physical gift certificate is not only time-saving for the buyer but also more convenient for the recipient to purchase his wishing item. In other words, using a gift voucher can create a sense of satisfaction for both buyer and receiver.

That is the reason why purchasing a Gift Card extension is a wise investment for any online merchant, especially when the upcoming shopping season is on the verge to start now. If you are still considering which extension is suitable to your store, let try Mageplaza Gift Card extension. It is sure to satisfy even the most difficult customers.