Gift cards for your online store and till

A gift card is one of the few products that brings money in before you've done anything — and often a new customer who wouldn't have come otherwise. In December and before Mother's Day, every shop and studio gets asked for them.

But in many businesses the gift card lives on paper or in an Excel sheet. A customer comes into the shop with a €50 card, spends €32 and asks: "How much have I got left?" Nobody knows exactly. It's even worse when the card was bought in the shop but the customer wants to use it online — and the online store knows nothing about the paper card.

Below is what selling and redeeming gift cards needs to cover, and how it works on the NUNDINAE platform, where the online store and the till are one application.

What to think through before selling gift cards

These questions are worth settling before the first card, not when a customer is standing at the counter:

• Can the card be used in part? If so, the balance has to be recorded somewhere and be checkable.
• Is it valid both in the shop and online? Customers don't think in channels. They expect your card to be valid with you.
• Can it be used to pay for a service? In a massage studio, a workshop or a photo studio, a service is often the most popular gift.
• What happens if the card is lost or has to be cancelled? Every card must be traceable by its code, not just by the piece of paper.
• Validity and terms. Decide how long the card is valid, and state it clearly on the card or in the email.
• How does it show up in the books? A card sold isn't yet service revenue — you need to see how many cards have been issued and how many of them redeemed.

Issuing: amount, recipient and code

In NUNDINAE you issue a gift card in the admin: enter the amount and the recipient, and if you wish the system emails the code to the recipient. Each card shows its balance and every movement — when and where it was used. If something needs fixing, the card can be adjusted or cancelled, and that stays in the history.

You can still print a paper card if the customer wants something to hand over. What matters is that behind the card there's a code the system recognises.

Redeeming at the till and online

Because the online store and the till are the same application in NUNDINAE, the same gift card works in both:

• At the till you choose gift card as the payment method. If there isn't enough on the card, the customer pays the rest by card or cash — split payments are normal at the till and change is calculated automatically.
• Online the customer enters the code in the basket, and the card covers the order in full or in part. They usually pay the rest by bank link or card.

The balance is one and the same number. If the customer spends €32 of the card in the shop, exactly €18 is left online at that same moment. There's no double spending and no need to keep separate records in two places.

One situation worth thinking about: what happens if the customer pays for an order partly with a gift card and the remaining bank payment fails? In NUNDINAE the amount taken from the card goes back onto the card. If the bank confirms the payment later, the amount is taken from the card again; if there's no longer enough on the card, the order isn't restored and the payment has to be refunded. That way the same card can't accidentally be used to pay twice.

Paying for a booked service with a gift card

In a service business, a gift card is often bought for a specific service — a massage, a photo session, a car service. In NUNDINAE the card's recipient books an appointment as usual and pays with the gift card at the till after the visit. The till has a "Today's bookings" button that adds the service together with the customer and the member of staff, and you choose gift card as the payment method. If the service cost more than was on the card, the customer pays the difference another way.

What staff see and what they don't

For gift cards, a person working at the till needs just one thing: to check the balance. Issuing, adjusting and cancelling cards is a separate permission in NUNDINAE, which you give only to those who actually do it. All changes go into the audit log.

Report: how much issued, how much redeemed

Gift cards have their own section in the reports. So at the end of the year you can see how many cards you sold and how much of them has already been redeemed — which matters both for the accounts and for understanding whether gift cards really bring in new customers.

Summary

A gift card works well when the customer doesn't have to think about where they can use it. The simplest way to achieve that is for the online store and the till not to be two separate programs with the card balance copied between them by hand. I wrote about why the same applies to stock levels in online store and inventory management in one app; more on the till side in POS system for a small shop. How gift cards fit into the daily work of a shop and online store is covered in online store and stock for a retail shop.

If you'd like to sell gift cards both in the shop and online without paper and Excel, order NUNDINAE or ask for a demo.