How can customers easily check their gift card balance?

Retail & Point of Sale

Topic summary

Retail merchants using Shopify POS lack a straightforward way for customers to check gift card balances in-store. Currently, staff must either:

Workarounds mentioned:

  • Add a dummy $10,000 product to the cart, scan the gift card to see what it would cover, then delete the cart (confusing for customers)
  • Look up the original purchase order number in POS (impractical, as customers rarely have this information)
  • Check balances through the Shopify admin panel (not customer-facing)
  • Scan gift card QR codes via POS home screen (recent addition)

Key frustrations:

  • Customers must wait in line just to ask staff for their balance
  • Unlike standard retail practice, there’s no self-service balance check option
  • Gift cards cannot be reloaded, adding to customer dissatisfaction
  • No web portal exists for balance inquiries independent of purchase confirmation emails

Status:
Shopify representatives acknowledged the feedback and forwarded requests to developers multiple times over several years. The issue remains unresolved, with merchants expressing ongoing frustration that such basic functionality is missing. One customer even struggled to check their own gift card balance, highlighting the gap between merchant and end-user experience.

Summarized with AI on October 28. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
28

We see it has been over a year since this thread began. The suggestion that the guest bring an order number along with the gift card to check the balance is madness to be polite. I am not sure what we are getting for all the increased charges for the POS. Frankly, to call this a PRO version is laughable.

Please add us to the list of shops that want this feature. happy-earth-tea.myshopify.com

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