Creating and Selling Gift Card Products

Before you can distribute gift cards, you need to establish their face values within your internal store and set up the automated delivery workflows. This lesson covers adding gift card product variants, tailoring the distinct email paths for buyers and recipients, and managing the customer purchase flow through the Contacts Portal.

Key Takeaways

• Adding Gift Card Values: To create purchase options for customers, navigate to your internal store settings rather than the main gift card tab. Under Internal store > Products > Gift cards, you can view your active variants and instantly add new price options (e.g., creating a €50 option alongside your existing €10 or €1,000 cards).

• The Two Necessary Email Workflows: Gift card sales rely on two separate automated communication streams that must be properly categorized under their respective Information settings:

  • Gift Card Recipient Email: Sent to the person receiving the gift card as a present. It must be assigned to the Gift card recipient system category.

  • Order Confirmation Email: Sent to the buyer to confirm their transaction was successful. It must be assigned to the Gift card order confirmation system category.

• Designing the Recipient Experience: Inside the email editor, you can drag and drop a dedicated Gift card content block from the right-hand panel directly into the body of your recipient template. This block automatically generates the visual elements your recipient needs, including the card's balance-check button, the unique hash number, and a redeemable QR code.

• Protecting the Buyer Journey: While buyers aren't usually the ones using the card, it is highly recommended to drag a backup gift card information block into the order confirmation template as well. This ensures the buyer has record of the card hash and details in case anything goes wrong with the recipient's delivery.

• Activating Portal Checkout: To sell these variants directly to your community, ensure the Gift cards block is toggled to visible within your Contacts Portal layout. Once saved, logged-in members will see your designated gift card options listed inside their personal portal account.

• The Recipient Information Flow: When a member buys a gift card for someone else via the portal, the interface guides them through an optimized gifting flow. The user selects the card value, inputs the recipient's email, first name, and last name, and types out a optional custom greeting (like "Happy Birthday") before being routed to your integrated checkout page to finalize payment.

Dashboard Checklist

1. Navigate to Store > Internal store, select Products > Gift cards from the left navigation, and use the Add option button to set up your specific card values.

2. Go to Automations > Automated emails and click Edit on your gift card recipient template.

3. Drag the Gift card block from the right-hand content menu into the email, brand your buttons and logos, verify the category is set to Gift card recipient, and click Publish.

4. Return to your automated emails list, click Edit on your order confirmation template, insert a backup gift card content block, verify the category is set to Gift card order confirmation, and click Publish.

5. Head over to Apps and touchpoints > Contacts portal, click Edit contact portal, and ensure the Gift cards block is activated and positioned optimally on the page layout.

6. Hit Save changes to push your new gift card inventory and checkout flow live.