Can I reuse and resell and redeemed plastic gift card?

Retail & Point of Sale

Topic summary

A merchant discovered that Shopify’s physical gift cards cannot be reloaded or reused after redemption, treating them as single-use items.

Key Points:

  • Once a plastic gift card is redeemed, the system prevents reloading it for resale
  • Multiple merchants express disappointment with this limitation
  • One user notes this is part of broader dissatisfaction with Shopify’s gift card functionality

Workaround:

  • One merchant reports placing thermal labels with new QR codes on the back of used cards to enable reuse, though acknowledging the appearance isn’t ideal

Concerns Raised:

  • Environmental waste from discarding perfectly good plastic cards
  • Perceived as wasteful and cost-inefficient

The issue remains unresolved as a platform limitation rather than user error.

Summarized with AI on October 31. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

We just started using Shopify plastic gift cards. A customer redeemed it. We wanted to reload and resell the card, but the system says it’s already been used.

This doesn’t seem to make sense that gift cards would be a one-time use plastic?

Are we missing something?

1 Like
2

You are not missing something.

The physical gift card is not reusable.

We ran into this issue when we switched to Shopify as well. We are less than impressed by Shopifys gift card function in general.

3

Quite odd! Majority of ours come back in perfect condition. It’s a waste to throw them out, horrible for the environment and greedy on Shopify’s end. We’ve been sticking thermal labels on the back with new QR codes, doesn’t look amazing but hey it’s right next to their logo so they can take the credit for the dodgy appearance