Selling gift cards to a brick-and-mortar store (massage services)

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Selling gift cards to a brick-and-mortar store (massage services)

lassiveh
Tourist
6 0 2

Hi! 

I'm creating an online store for a massage therapist to help him automate gift card sales. I've created a few gift card products (as regular products), such as: 

  • 60 min massage 
  • 45 min Indian head massage 
  • value of your choice (variants: 50€, 100€, 150€) 

The therapist has currently physical gift cards and we'd like to replicate the look and feel of these gift cards in these digital gift cards as well. 

 

I have a few requirements: 

  1. I'd like the gift card to be delivered automatically to the buyer's email as a downloadable/printable PDF file. I was planning to use Digital Downloads app by Shopify for this but it doesn't seem to work reliably and has gotten quite bad reviews. 
  2. The gift card / PDF file should ideally include
    1. the order number or some other identifying code. 
    2. a valid through date (calculated from the purchase date)
    3. optionally the name of the recipient. I first thought of modifying "Shipping address" -> "Recipient" in the checkout flow but it wouldn't be a perfect solution. The recipient info should be tied to an individual gift card and not an order since an order could include gift cards to multiple recipients. So this should probably be handled on the product page or in the shopping cart? 

 

Some options I have considered: 

  1. Use some (preferably free) third party digital downloads app. Do you have any recommendations? 
  2. Use Shopify's gift cards. But since the online store had only gift card products, would this approach make sense? What is the likelihood that gift cards will be included in the Basic plan for years to come? 
  3. Modify the order confirmation email template to have download links. I'd need to look into if it's possible to create logic for this to make it bullet-proof (if the order includes "gift card x", then a download link for "file x" would be added, etc.) 
  4. Use an email marketing app (i.e. Klaviyo) with the necessary logic that would send the download link to the customer after the purchase. 

 

What would you recommend? 

 

Accepted Solution (1)

DMT-Mat
Shopify Partner
20 3 15

This is an accepted solution.

The easiest solution by far would be to use the new built-in gift card feature from Shopify. Instead of setting the gift cards up as normal products you can create gift-card products (a sub-item of products in the shopify admin), which will automatically generate a unique voucher code for the purchaser. One restriction is that it can only be redeemed with the Shopify checkout - so the physical location would need to use the shopify POS also, or use the online store to verify the voucher code at least.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsecl4kYaIs

 

Then you could customise the post-purchase email to include and style your emails as needed.

 

You could also use a third party app, there's quite a few - Growave and Rise are quite well-rated, and Govolo has a free(ish) tier you could use, but I can't comment on it's quality: 

https://apps.shopify.com/browse/merchandising-gifts-gift-cards

 

Personally I'd stick with the built-in Shopify method.

Need expert help with your Shopify Website? Message me or contact the team.

View solution in original post

Replies 4 (4)

DMT-Mat
Shopify Partner
20 3 15

This is an accepted solution.

The easiest solution by far would be to use the new built-in gift card feature from Shopify. Instead of setting the gift cards up as normal products you can create gift-card products (a sub-item of products in the shopify admin), which will automatically generate a unique voucher code for the purchaser. One restriction is that it can only be redeemed with the Shopify checkout - so the physical location would need to use the shopify POS also, or use the online store to verify the voucher code at least.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsecl4kYaIs

 

Then you could customise the post-purchase email to include and style your emails as needed.

 

You could also use a third party app, there's quite a few - Growave and Rise are quite well-rated, and Govolo has a free(ish) tier you could use, but I can't comment on it's quality: 

https://apps.shopify.com/browse/merchandising-gifts-gift-cards

 

Personally I'd stick with the built-in Shopify method.

Need expert help with your Shopify Website? Message me or contact the team.
lassiveh
Tourist
6 0 2

Thanks! I looked more thoroughly into it and it looks like a good solution. We'll just need to adjust some of the texts in the gift card itself to avoid confusion. My only concern is that gift cards won't be included in the Basic plan some day in the future but we'll have to figure out a plan B for that scenario. 

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