Using gift cards

A gift card is store credit with its own code. A customer types the code at checkout and it pays part or all of the order. Gift cards live under Gift Cards in your Orbit dashboard, where you can issue them, search them and track what is still outstanding.

Cards reach customers in two ways. You can sell them on your storefront like any other product, or you can issue one yourself from the dashboard.

Start here

• Selling and issuing gift cards: the difference between a gift card you sell and one you hand out, and how to set up a gift card product.
• Issuing a gift card: create a card from your dashboard, set the amount, and send the code to a recipient.

Day to day

• Managing gift cards: the Gift Cards list, the summary figures, what each status means, and how to edit, deactivate or delete a card.
• Redeeming gift cards and checking balances: how a customer spends a card at checkout, why a code can be refused, and where to look up a balance.

Policy and returns

• Setting gift card expiry dates: what the expiry field does, and what to weigh up before you set one.
• Refunding to a gift card: how to hand back value as store credit, and when you should not.

What gift cards are good for

Gift cards give customers a way to buy for someone else, and they give you a way to hand out credit without a discount code or a price change. Each card carries its own balance and its own history, so you can see how much credit you have issued, how much has been spent, and how much is still owed.