Help centre

Gift cards

A gift card is money your shop owes someone. Customers can buy one on your shop, you can issue one yourself, and the holder spends it at checkout. Gift cards are part of your shop, not an app. Find them under Products, Gift cards. Owners and managers can open that page.

Selling gift cards

Add a product and tick This is a gift card. Each option is an amount, like R200, R500 and R1 000. A gift card needs no delivery or stock, and it can't be a bundle or have quantity breaks.

At checkout the buyer must give an email address. A Gift card section lets them add the recipient's name, email and a short message. If they leave it blank, the card comes to them. Once the order is paid, each card is created and emailed with its code, amount and expiry date, plus a link to check the balance. An order of nothing but gift cards has no address or delivery step, and is marked fulfilled for you when it is paid. You can change the wording of the email under Settings, Notifications, for the Gift card email.

Worth knowing: no discount code or automatic discount applies to a gift card being bought, and a gift card can't pay for another gift card.

Issuing one yourself

On the Gift cards page, fill in Issue a gift card: an amount (up to R50 000 a card), and optionally the recipient's name, email and message, and a note for you that is never emailed. Tick Email it to the recipient now to send it straight away. The full code shows on the next page. A code is 16 letters and digits in four groups, like XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX.

By default a card expires 3 years from today. The Consumer Protection Act says a gift card must stay valid for at least 3 years, so a nearer date is refused. You can pick a later date, or tick No expiry date.

Worth knowing: after you leave the page, screens only show the last 4 characters. Show full code brings the whole code back, and each time you use it is written to your Activity log.

How customers spend one

At checkout, the customer types the code into the Gift card or discount code box. The card is taken off after discounts and delivery.

  • If it covers only part, the customer pays the rest the normal way at checkout.
  • If it covers everything, checkout says so and there is no payment step. The order is marked paid.

The amount is set aside when the order is placed, so two checkouts can't spend the same rand. If a card or PayPal checkout is left unpaid, the amount goes back on the card after 24 hours. Cancelling the order gives it back straight away.

Worth knowing: someone who types too many wrong codes is blocked for a few minutes.

Checking a balance

The gift card email has a Check your balance link. It opens a page on your shop where the customer types the code and sees the balance, the original value, the expiry date and whether the card is ready to spend, fully spent, expired or disabled.

Worth knowing: that page isn't in your shop's menu. To add it, put a Custom link to /gift-card in Online store, Navigation.

Managing your cards

The Gift cards page lists every card with its balance, status (Active, Used, Expired or Disabled) and who it is for. Search by the last 4 characters, a name, an email or a full code, or use the status tabs. The top shows how many live cards there are and how much is still to spend.

Open a card to see its balance and its history: issued, held for an unpaid order, spent, hold released, refunded to the card, adjusted. From there you can:

  • Email it again, if it has an email address.
  • Disable it so it can't be spent, and Turn back on later.
  • Change the balance, adding or taking off an amount. A reason is required and goes in the history. A balance can't go below R0.00 or above R50 000.

Refunds back to a card

If a card paid for all or part of an order, open the paid order and look for Gift card part under refunds. Enter the amount and press Put back on gift card. You can put back up to what the card paid.

No card or bank money moves, because this is your own credit. You do the real refund for any card payment in your Yoco or PayGate app as usual, then record it on the order.

Worth knowing: you have to put the gift card part back before you can cancel a paid order. Refunding an order that bought a gift card does not switch that card off, so disable it on its page if it shouldn't be spent.

In your numbers

A gift card sale counts as a sale when its order is paid. When someone spends the card later, the part the card paid is not counted as a second sale.

Still stuck? [email protected] or WhatsApp 073 429 5517.