Gift Card Code in Draft Order / Backend Order

Topic summary

Merchants cannot apply gift card codes when creating orders through Shopify’s admin backend or draft orders—a limitation that has persisted since at least 2019. Gift cards can only be redeemed through the standard customer-facing checkout process.

Current Workarounds:

  • Mark draft orders as paid and manually note gift card usage, then disable the card in admin
  • Use Shopify POS to process phone orders with gift cards, then return to admin for shipping labels
  • Create orders through checkout as if the customer were placing it themselves

Business Impact:

  • Particularly problematic for merchants with phone/call center orders
  • Creates accounting issues when marking orders paid for full amounts while only charging partial amounts
  • Affects customers without email/internet access who cannot complete online checkout
  • No split payment option available for gift card + remaining balance scenarios

Status:

  • Shopify Support confirmed in 2024 that feedback is being shared with developers but no implementation timeline exists
  • The thread spans 6+ years (2019-2025) with no resolution
  • Merchants express frustration that this “basic ecommerce functionality” remains unavailable
  • Community members request a feature voting system, believing this would rank highly

Discussion remains open with merchants continuing to request updates and express disappointment over the lack of progress.

Summarized with AI on October 25. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.

Anyone lknow if this is a feature yet, at the moment we are having to use the pos app and take payments over the phone if the total is being paid part by gift card?

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