Gift Card Integration Between Online Store & POS

[amykzoocandle]

Hello!

We currently have a Shopify online store and Shopify POS. They are not currently integrated. We want to be able to find a way to use gift cards that are purchased online to be able to be used in our retail store, and vice versa. Is there a way or an app that could let us do that? Or would we have to hire a developer to allow this to happen?

Any advice would be helpful! Thanks!

[Nick · Accepted solution]

Hi @amykzoocandle,

Nick here from Shopify. 

Can I ask what you mean when you say your Shopify online store and Shopify POS aren't integrated? Do you mean, you have two separate stores with one for each? I took a closer look and spoke to our retail support team just in case this was the case. They mentioned there would be no way to merge two active accounts. Your best bet here would be to export all the data off one shop, upload it to the other and then close the other store. If you were to export the POS store, for example, there is a helpful guide from Shopify which might offer some further insight for you here. 

If a POS and online store are together as one, then a gift card bought from either would be valid and able to be used online or in person, this would be no problem. There are some requirements such as having to be on the Shopify plan or higher and to enable gift cards in the POS app which you can see in the Redeeming gift card guide here. 

I hope this helps and looking forward to hearing from you. 

All the best, Nick

[Nick · Accepted solution]

Hi @amykzoocandle,

Nick here from Shopify. 

Can I ask what you mean when you say your Shopify online store and Shopify POS aren't integrated? Do you mean, you have two separate stores with one for each? I took a closer look and spoke to our retail support team just in case this was the case. They mentioned there would be no way to merge two active accounts. Your best bet here would be to export all the data off one shop, upload it to the other and then close the other store. If you were to export the POS store, for example, there is a helpful guide from Shopify which might offer some further insight for you here. 

If a POS and online store are together as one, then a gift card bought from either would be valid and able to be used online or in person, this would be no problem. There are some requirements such as having to be on the Shopify plan or higher and to enable gift cards in the POS app which you can see in the Redeeming gift card guide here. 

I hope this helps and looking forward to hearing from you. 

All the best, Nick

[amykzoocandle]

Hi Nick!

Thanks for the reply! Yes, that's correct. We have a Shopify account for e-commerce and a separate Shopify POS for our retail store. So the only way that we could have gift cards that works with both is to combine the two shops? If so, that is good to know! Thank you for the information!

[Nick · Accepted solution]

Hi @amykzoocandle,

This is correct, 

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So the only way that we could have gift cards that works with both is to combine the two shops? If so, that is good to know! Thank you for the information!

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Because of this, your best bet would be to add the POS retail sales channel to one of your stores depending on which one you would prefer. It might be best to keep the website live one active and export the data from the POS sales channel store over. 

Hope this helps!

All the best, Nick

[Stellies]

Hi! 

We have activated Gift cards within Shopify. Our POS system VEND, has an internal gift card activated. How do I get the Shopify activated Gift Card to sync with our POS system? 

In addition, what do I do about the Internal gift card VEND provides. 

Thank you in advance, 

Beth 

[Nick]

Hi @Stellies,

I looked into this with our POS retail team. They mentioned that while it might be possible, it's something to reach out to Vend directly about to see if it's possible on their software. Shopify wouldn't support these types of integrations directly and it would be best to contact Vend to determine if this would be possible. You can contact Vend directly here. 

Something you could possibly look into is moving to Shopify POS and using the gift card feature which is already built into it. You can see more about Shopify gift card with POS here. 

[Jehi]

Hi all,

jumping in here with a similar situation: Shopify Onlineshop selling and redeeming gift cards.

Now there is the requirement to redeem theses shopify gift cards on a POS location with a 3rd party POS-system (NOT Shopify POS).

Is there a way to redeem a shopify gift card somehow manually? Without integrating POS-System an Shopify.
It is a small business with one location only. So integration efforts doesn´t make any sense.

Thanks for helping out. Looking forward to any tipps and comments.
BR; JEns

[Nick]

Hi @Jehi,

When you say:

---

Is there a way to redeem a shopify gift card somehow manually? Without integrating POS-System an Shopify.
It is a small business with one location only. So integration efforts doesn´t make any sense.

---

Do you mean is there a way to redeem a gift card on Shopify without having to integrate or subscribe to the POS plan? It's definitely possible to redeem gift cards on all Shopify plans without having to subscribe to the POS plan. 

You can see this from the screenshot below from our gift card help guide here: 

As well as the FAQ on gift cards Shopify has here. 

Let me know if this answers and clarifies this for you! 

[Jehi]

Dear @Nick,
thanks for your fast reply.
This is not exactly the scenario I am thinking of.

Situation:
1. Gift card has been bought in an Shopify Online Shop

2. Customers intend to use / redeem this gift card in the related retail store.
This retail store is using a 3rd party till/POS-System. No Shopify POS.

My question is basically if staff in the retail store can redeem the gift card
in an App or on a website without using it for an order in a shopify checkout?

e.g. just like issuing a gift card in the shopify backend, but the other way around: redeeming a certain amount.

Does that explain it better?
Thanks and best regards, Jens

[Jehi]

Dear @Nick ,

do you have any kind of information about this issue?

Thanks, Jens

[Nick]

Hi @Jehi,

I looked into this for you on these questions specifically and spoke to someone on the retail team about it. They said a gift card cannot be redeemed on a third party POS system without some sort of integration. Because of that, your best bet would be to have some custom work done in the back end API of your store OR look into using an app from the Shopify App Store. 

You can ask around in the API/ SDK board of the community here or if you aren't comfortable or sure what to ask there, you can look into talking to a Shopify Expert about helping with this. 

If you wanted to go the app route, there is an app the retail team suggested called POS system by ConnectPOS which would be worth investigating. 

[Jehi]

Hi @Nick 
thanks for your investigation.
Unfortunately, both options are not really feasible in this case.
As a very small local bakery, there is no budget to develop an individual system integration.
The Add-on you mention probably does the required task, but as it is a full POS solution it seems to be overdone. There is already a POS solution in place.
But thanks for your effort.
There seems to be a gap here as my assumption is that a lot of retailers do have the same issue.

Have a nice weekend, Nick.

BR, Jens

[sweets_admin]

Hello Jehi,

I, too, am a small mom & pop shop. We have an online Shopify store and a robust POS System that is not through Shopify.  We tried the Shopify POS and it didn't work for our business.  Like you, I am wanting to find a way to do electronic gift cards that our customers can use both online AND in our store.  Have you found a solution or work-around to this problem so that gift cards can be used through two different systems? It looks like you last inquired about two years ago.  Just wondering if you found a solution yet!  Would really appreciate any input. 

Thanks,

Betsy

[gsvec00]

Hi Amy! 

I had this same problem until last month where I began using rise.ai (https://apps.shopify.com/rise-ai). Rise enables you to integrate your online store to your Shopify POS. Also, if you have customer accounts on your online store, you can create a workflow that accumulates store credit into their accounts that can be redeemed both online and your brick and mortar stores. 

Hope this helped!

Best,

Gaby

[Chris_Hantis]

Have a look at our app GiftCheck Pro -> https://apps.shopify.com/gift-card-balance