Feature Request: Check Gift Card Balance

ShawnBouchard
Pathfinder
93 1 88

Good day! I've put in the request via email and phone, but wanted to rally the forum to maybe submit your own feature requests. With a brick and mortar store, customers that received a gift card as a gift want to know what the balance is before shopping. Which results in them standing in line, then asking what their balance is. Unfortunately there is no easy way to do this. There is no "check balance" button. 

 

So we've resorted to adding a $10,000 product, available on POS only, then you add it to the cart, scan the payment gift card, see what the Gift Card WOULD pay for, then delete the cart and advise the customer. 

 

But this regularly results in the customer seeing $10,000 on the customer view screen and being confused. What a feature to lack...

5 year e-commerce, 11 years B&M store. www.shopbraeheid.com
Replies 58 (58)

Rae
Shopify Staff (Retired)
1166 95 361

Hi, @ShawnBouchard

 

Rae from Shopify here. 

 

Thank you for reaching out with this feature request. I can definitely understand how it would be helpful to have a way to check gift card balances on our POS, so I would be glad to pass this feedback over to our developers so that they can read over your thoughts too. 

 

We’re always looking to improve our platform, so we really appreciate you taking the time to submit this feedback. Hopefully our teams can look into building a feature that allows for this in the future. If our teams add this feature in, it will be announced in our changelog and also on our Announcements page

 

In the meantime though, the best way to check these balances is directly in your Shopify admin by clicking on ‘Products > Gift Cards’ and selecting the card in question. On this screen, the balance remaining on the card will be displayed. For the specific steps to find this information, check out this help doc

 

If a gift card is associated with a customer’s account, the customer can also check their gift card balance using the link in the email they received at the time of purchasing the card. Check out more information on this here.  

 

Let me know if you have any other feature requests, or if you have any questions or concerns, and I would be glad to help further. 

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

Bryce8
Visitor
1 0 2

Hi,

I think having the ability to check gift card balances easily would be wonderful. Also the ability to view the cash opening, closing, and adds to the till each day on reports would be incredible.

Thank you for this consideration!

Kokonuty
Visitor
2 0 2

Yes I ran into this problem yesterday.  The associate couldn't check it on POS app so I took it to the admin to check on the computer.  Associates don't have admin rights and wouldn't be able to check it if I was not around at the time.

AmandaPGD
Tourist
5 0 6

@Kokonuty wrote:

Yes I ran into this problem yesterday.  The associate couldn't check it on POS app so I took it to the admin to check on the computer.  Associates don't have admin rights and wouldn't be able to check it if I was not around at the time.


Agreed.  There seems to be a lot of "basic" retail features that only admins can do - it makes it very difficult for regular sales staff to be able to assist customers using only the POS station.

 

pgrahamdunn.myshopify.com

SpencerCran
Excursionist
15 0 108

One more vote for checking the gift card balance in-store. It is a pretty basic retail feature.

Jewelcam
Explorer
48 0 32

agreed we need this feature ASAP

PatrickG
Tourist
4 0 4

Hello,

The issue with the suggested work around is that we do not give store associates access to shopify only store managers. They are not in the store 24/7 so its still an issue for us a portion of the time.

RikkiLeighG
Tourist
3 0 9

Are you guys even attempting to work on this major issue? If you’re going to charge a premium for your POS system now,I feel all of the basic functions should be there. 

ShawnBouchard
Pathfinder
93 1 88

It's been nearly 2 years since this thread was made. How is it even conceivable, that this isn't on the top priority list? How can you allow me to sell a gift card to a customer, but have no way to check the gift card balance. Square has it. Big commerce has it. Retail stores have it. Yet the Goliath E-commerce platform Shopify, hasn't figured it out. Not even a customer portal for them to enter their card? Jesus Christ Shopify. Everytime you push an update and change the color of the admin. Or tweak the order screen with a "view more" button, I shake my head in dissapointment that THAT had more urgency than allowing your PAYING customers the ability to check gift card balances. 

5 year e-commerce, 11 years B&M store. www.shopbraeheid.com
Discmayhem
Excursionist
22 0 58

That was well said and have to agree. Beyond frustrating with the visual tweaks made instead of a feature as important as this. I believe Shopify is about the clicks and scrolls to waste time and this is added to my wasted time having to log into the admin to see balances. Also dislike the fact that the gift cards can't be reloaded, which is such a waste.  My customers find it very hard to believe they can't reload.

Roman89
Explorer
65 0 51

I guess this function will take another 20 years to build.... dresses-boutique.myshopify.com

NDtricia
Tourist
6 0 19
We too would LOVE to have the ability to check gift certificate balances in the POS app!
Rae
Shopify Staff (Retired)
1166 95 361

Hi, @NDtricia and @ShawnBouchard

 

Thank you for expressing your interest in this feature, @NDtricia, and welcome to the Shopify Community. 

 

I wanted to reach out to both yourself, and @ShawnBouchard, to let you know that it's now possible to check the remaining balance of gift cards from directly within the POS app.

 

To do this, please follow these steps: 

 

  1. Open the POS app and select the 'Orders'  tab. 
  2. Search for the order number where the gift card was originally purchased, and then tap on this order to open it. 
  3. Select the gift card from inside the order. 
  4. A window will display which outlines the remaining balance left on the card. The window will look similar to this:

 

19-12-0a7pb-2fwro.jpg

 

Additionally, if you ever need to replace a gift card that has been lost or stolen, please make sure to disable the original gift card by following these steps. Then, reissue a new gift card with the remaining balance by completing these steps

 

If you have any questions or concerns about this process, feel free to reach back out to me here for further assistance. 

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

NDtricia
Tourist
6 0 19
Thanks for trying but the people who have the gift card won't know the
purchase number.
ShawnBouchard
Pathfinder
93 1 88
I agree completely. Wth Shopify. So this is how you expect this to go down:

Me: customer enters store

Customer: Hi, I recieved a gift card for Christmas, can you tell me the balance?

Me: sure what's the order #?

Customer: .....

Edit to add:

To Shopify developers, when is the last time you were in a store trying to spend a gift card and you had to know the receipt number for your gift card??? Did that happen to you at Cineplex? How about home sense? Last time you went through a. Drive through and used a gift card, did you give them the receipt # from the person that bought it for you so you could check the balance? Wtf
5 year e-commerce, 11 years B&M store. www.shopbraeheid.com
Rae
Shopify Staff (Retired)
1166 95 361

Hi, @NDtricia and @ShawnBouchard

 

Thank you both for your feedback.

 

I understand this is an important feature for both of your businesses, so I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us. I will pass this feedback over to our developers so they're aware of how this is impacting you, and how the current feature could be improved. 

 

In the meantime, as a workaround, I recommend writing the order number directly on the back of the physical gift cards that you sell before giving them to your customers. That way, when a customer needs to check the balance on their gift card, the order number is already written on the back of the card and can be easily located and entered into the POS to help determine the remaining balance. 

 

Please let me know if there's anything else I can assist with. 

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

TylerKing
Tourist
8 0 36

It would be nice if there was a web portal where they could check the balance. I understand they can follow the link on the email, however usually the customer who purchased the gift card isn't the one uses it or gets the email to see the balance, especially in a retail gift card situation. This would be a massively useful feature as a location that sells a lot of physical gift cards.

Rae
Shopify Staff (Retired)
1166 95 361

Hi, @TylerKing!

 

Thank you for reaching out with this suggestion. I can see how this would be a helpful addition for customers and retail merchants, so I'll add this piece of feedback to the list I've shared with our developers. 

 

In the meantime, if any other Community members would like to add their interest in this feature with our teams, please reply to me here with your .myshopify.com URL and I will add your feedback to our list. 

 

Thanks! 

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

ShawnBouchard
Pathfinder
93 1 88

braeheidgardens.myshopify.com

5 year e-commerce, 11 years B&M store. www.shopbraeheid.com
einardo
Shopify Partner
10 0 15

I second this. We need to be able to let the clients check their current balance.

Yes it can be done by adding the gift card to Apple Wallet, and yes it can be done at checkout - not very intuitive though.

contexo.myshopify.com etc. etc.

JM_Korrupt
Tourist
6 0 6

 

Agreed. This should be a basic feature -- it's "Gift Card 101". Please make it so, the entire experience needs to be CUSTOMER centric.

 

korruptlabel.myshopify.com

Roman89
Explorer
65 0 51

dresses-boutique.myshopify.com

Andrea_Georgi
Visitor
3 0 5

+1 for allowing customers to check their own gift card balance via web portal!

the-citizenry.myshopify.com

Jenny_Stilley
Tourist
5 0 11

BohoBlu.myshopify.com would love this!

Manu_Meyer
Tourist
6 0 5

soeder.myshopify.com

NildeRivo
Tourist
4 0 5

raysomm.myshopify.com

I am interested in having customers manage their balance online -not a physical store.

Discmayhem
Excursionist
22 0 58

I agree with the previous conversations about checking the gift card balances.  Our sales team in the pro shop do not have access to the admin side of things to check the available balances.  It would be nice if you could scan the gc code and then show you the balance available like when you go into other stores.  It has been beyond frustrating for our customers to leave the card behind with a note for management to look up.  I also strongly agree most of them know it was a gift yet doesn't have the order number or even know when it was purchased to look up.

sdgpos2015

RikkiLeighG
Tourist
3 0 9

So, it's been almost a year since this issue with gift card services and I don't see where anything has been resolved.  The new version of POS still doesn't seem to adress the gift card balance problem.  Should we hope for an update soon or do I need to start shopping around for a POS system again that can do this for us? 

SpencerCran
Excursionist
15 0 108

Has this been brought to the Retail Team and do they monitor this thread?

Rae
Shopify Staff (Retired)
1166 95 361

Hi, @RikkiLeighG and @SpencerCran

Thank you both for reaching out about this. 

I've shared all the previous feedback in this thread with our teams directly, and will continue to do so for new comments, too. With that said, both of your thoughts and concerns have been passed along to our teams. 

While we don't have any updates on this request at the moment, I recommend keeping an eye on our changelog. This is where we'll post any new information we have regarding this request. 

In the meantime though, the best way to determine the remaining balance on a gift card is by looking up the original order where the gift card was purchased on the all-new POS. Here, you'll see the gift card's initial balance, as well as its current balance. If you aren't sure what order number the gift card was purchased on, you can also use the global search feature to locate the customer who purchased the card, and view their past order history to find the order containing the gift card. 

Let me know if you have any questions about this process! 

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

ShawnBouchard
Pathfinder
93 1 88

What a trash solution.

Search the purchaser and scroll through their order history looking for the gift card purchase. 

Trash. Absolute trash. 

Shopify needs to implement a check balance feature, like every other pos service. 

5 year e-commerce, 11 years B&M store. www.shopbraeheid.com
Jewelcam
Explorer
48 0 32

Agreed 

Niraj_Lama
Excursionist
33 0 17

We see it has been over a year since this thread began. The suggestion that the guest bring an order number along with the gift card to check the balance is madness to be polite. I am not sure what we are getting for all the increased charges for the POS. Frankly, to call this a PRO version is laughable.  

Please add us to the list of shops that want this feature. happy-earth-tea.myshopify.com 

coastalartisan
Tourist
3 0 13

Is there an update on us being able to link to a page for our customers to check their gift card balance themselves? Please get moving on this. It's been over a year since merchants have been asking for this and it seems like it should be something that is just logical to have as basic functionality. Looking up orders in a list is crazy. As a small business owner I would appreciate the help in saving me the admin time of having to hunt and peck for such information. Kindly add me to the list of businesses that would appreciate this functionality. It seems sub-par to call it a 'feature'. Thank you!

CedarMoon
Visitor
1 0 5

Even for online store, it is critical to let card REPCEIPIENTS to easily check their gift card balance.

Hard to believe that Shopify has not acted on a solution when you claim to value "customer experience"

Please add us to the list of shops that want this feature.

https://cedarmoon.myshopify.com

MartinRocky
Visitor
2 0 9

I would like to add my voice to those others asking for what seems like a basic POS function. It would be a big help and make for a better customer and employee experience to have a simple feature of checking the gift card balance. Our retail staff don't have access to the backend, as some others have mentioned, which makes one of the workarounds impossible.

It's great that these issues are being brought to the product team, but increasingly we've been pushing up against limitations to Shopify POS with no viable workaround and no planned solution (e.g. standalone customer returns, disabling quick sale in POS, merge customer profiles, etc.). It's disappointing and results in more time spent fixing errors.

RockyG1rl
Visitor
2 0 1

What I have done to help with this issue is print out the receipt, because it will print the price along with the QR code of the gift card on a separate receipt. I then add it to the small envelope I put the gift card into. You can find small envelopes for places that sell mini cards. I order mine from Nashvillewraps.com. I just had this issue and the customer then noticed that there was a paper in their envelope that told them the amount on the gift card, which saved me from having to log into the admin portal.

 

Also, I have not been able to test this, but it is possible to scan the gift card when in the orders section of the POS in the search bar. When I tried scanning an unused gift card, it said “gift card not recognized” so maybe it’s possible to search for one that has been purchased that way.

Beth_Lawrence
Tourist
12 0 7

That doesn't work - the order number is not on the gift card.

 

Wildernest1
Excursionist
11 0 11

Yes, we would absolutely love to see this feature added....make it a tile that you can add.  

Roman89
Explorer
65 0 51
I also want this feature

Alex291
Excursionist
17 0 8

Hi Shawn,

Hope you are doing well! We are Shopify Partner and building apps for your Shopify Store.

We have created an earning points, rewards & referrals program Shopify App, There is a way to check the balance before shopping, but you need to install it first after that you can get features and dashboard details. For more Shopify apps features details visit us at - https://apps.shopify.com/partners/bitcot-inc.

Thank you

coastalartisan
Tourist
3 0 13

While this is great to know and great functionality - checking gift card balance from a system that generates the gift card is something that should be native to the system and not require a third-party app that additionally requires another paid subscription. This is basic functionality that should be built-in. While I commend you for an app that may be useful to some at this time, let's hope this doesn't deter Shopify from actually addressing a long-requested native functionality, sooner than later.

ShawnBouchard
Pathfinder
93 1 88

Bumping. Because this needs more eyes and more people calling Shopify to make this feature request. Not just comments on the forum. 

5 year e-commerce, 11 years B&M store. www.shopbraeheid.com
NDtricia
Tourist
6 0 19

Even with the "upgraded" POS, nothing!  Perhaps Shopify should have their programmers work retail for a month or more, so they understand why this is an important feature in a POS.  Or they could come up with a customer app were customers could check their balances at shopify stores, think of all the extra data collecting they could do😜

Jewelcam
Explorer
48 0 32

Bump

AdrianExpert
Shopify Partner
28 1 1

Hey Guys,

Adrian from Syncube Team here!

We've developed an app which helps to check gift card balance at a storefront side and in POS. 

To be able to check the remaining balance of gift cards in Shopify POS app make the following:

  1. Install the app
  2. Open Shopify POS app
  3. Go to the page where you would like to place our app tile
  4. Press Add tile button
  5. Go to the app menu item
  6. Select Gift Card Hero from the list
  7. Press Gift card balance check from the Actions menu
  8. Press Done

Now clicking on the Gift Card Hero tile will take you to a page where you can check the remaining balance of the gift card.

You may find the app by this link:

Gift card balance check app 

If you have any question or feature requests don't hesitate to contact me here of via support email.

 

For you to achieve your goals, visitors must first achieve theirs
NDtricia
Tourist
6 0 19

My two sense:

Appreciate that you have developed something we can use but I refuse to pay $179.88 a year for a feature that should(at the very least) be included in the Pos Plus fee.  I understand you are in the business of making money and truly hope you prosper. 

Hey shopify why don't you pay this company $14.99 a month out of the $89.00 you charge us for the "Plus" POS.

 

ShawnBouchard
Pathfinder
93 1 88

Amen. Thankyou for figuring out a solution. Shame on shopify for not making it "plus" feature. Shame on them

5 year e-commerce, 11 years B&M store. www.shopbraeheid.com
AdrianExpert
Shopify Partner
28 1 1

What would you consider a fair price for the app? We'll consider to change the price policy for it even if you suggest to make it lifetime free or charge.

For you to achieve your goals, visitors must first achieve theirs