Mark Unpaid not an option for gift cards?

[HKJ]

A customer asked us to prepare a gift card for her.

We went through the steps to check out a gift card, but the option to "mark unpaid" (upper right corner) did not turn blue.

Is there away to activate this?

[Julie]

Hi, @HKJ!

Julie here from Shopify Support.

What you're experiencing is expected behaviour; when selling gift cards, it's not possible to select the "Mark unpaid" option. This is because gift cards are basically currency. Marking them as unpaid could be considered a liability to your business, since gift cards carry a balance.

I'm curious to know why you are wanting to mark the gift card order as unpaid. Is the customer planning on ordering the gift card in advance before coming in to pick it up? If so, you could consider just setting it aside at the till, then processing the transaction when she arrives. 

I hope this clears things up, but let me know if you have further questions! 

[HKJ]

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@Julie wrote:

Hi, @HKJ!

Julie here from Shopify Support.

What you're experiencing is expected behaviour; when selling gift cards, it's not possible to select the "Mark unpaid" option. This is because gift cards are basically currency. Marking them as unpaid could be considered a liability to your business, since gift cards carry a balance.

I'm curious to know why you are wanting to mark the gift card order as unpaid. Is the customer planning on ordering the gift card in advance before coming in to pick it up? If so, you could consider just setting it aside at the till, then processing the transaction when she arrives. 

I hope this clears things up, but let me know if you have further questions! 

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That's correct, we want to put them aside for customers who order and will pick up.

We sometimes have customers who orders several gift cards at once. Yes, we can set aside the physical cards and write in the amount ahead of time, but if they come at a busy time, processing the cards (which may be of different denominations) can take time and make them, or other customers, wait unnecessarily.

Although you view gift cards as currency, they are also a product.

Thank you for your reply.

[Julie]

Thanks for following up.

If setting the gift cards aside isn't a viable solution, then you could take credit card payments over the phone. This would allow customers to "secure" their gift card and avoid having to wait in line at your store. You can learn how to take a manual credit card payment here.

This might be a workaround worth considering. Otherwise, you will need to process the gift card transactions when the customer arrives at your store.

I hope this helps! 

[HKJ]

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@Julie wrote:

Thanks for following up.

If setting the gift cards aside isn't a viable solution, then you could take credit card payments over the phone. This would allow customers to "secure" their gift card and avoid having to wait in line at your store. You can learn how to take a manual credit card payment here.

This might be a workaround worth considering. Otherwise, you will need to process the gift card transactions when the customer arrives at your store.

I hope this helps! 

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I thought of that, but that doesn't help if a customer will pay with cash or check.

Truth is, if it's a customer we know, we could mark as paid and then receive payment when they come. The issue is keeping track of whether the order was paid within Shopify (workaround - mark it in the notes).

We could also issue the cards to ourselves (essentially pre loading them) and then receive payment in person.

So, it's not as if there aren't workarounds, but that's all they are - workarounds.

Thanks again for your replies.

[HKJ]

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@selina10261 wrote:

Have you solved this problem now? I also want to know how to activate this gift card.

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My problem wasn't activating the gift card feature, it was marking a sale of a gift card as unpaid.

There's no "solution" - the response from Shopify was that they do not allow this by design.

If you are having an issue activating the gift card feature, let me know where you're stuck; I can try to help you. You can also check out this article.