Gift Certificate purchases to have different credited value

[anoop]

Hi guys,
Need an advice
I would like to change the purchasing value of the Gift Certificate to different value
For example an offer like,

Limited Period offer "Gift certificates worth $100 at $50 "
Here customer spend only $50 but his GV account is credited with $100.

any suggestions on how to set up this feature
if this feature is already in zen cart, needs some help in setting it up.

Thanks in advance

[gilby]

Hi guys,
Need an advice
I would like to change the purchasing value of the Gift Certificate to different value
For example an offer like,

Limited Period offer "Gift certificates worth $100 at $50 "
Here customer spend only $50 but his GV account is credited with $100.

any suggestions on how to set up this feature
if this feature is already in zen cart, needs some help in setting it up.

Thanks in advance

The problem with this is that it is never ending
You buy more items with the Gift Certificates and get double back to buy more items with gift certifcates that give you more gift cerificates............

Gift Certificates are CASH and need to be treated as such. They are not appropriate for this situation.

Better to use Coupons instead as you can limit their use.

[anoop]

Thanks gilby for your reply,
but still don't get it that "it is never ending
You buy more items with the Gift Certificates"
If we sell gift certificates since it is also a product; a product (GC) is sold .
If the customer uses it to buy another product with GC amount its ok He has already bought GC worth that money.
Still needs some clarification in Gift Certificate's working

[schoolboy]

Strictky speaking, gift certificates in e-commerce environments (of which ZC is one), are not products, but a form of creating a CREDIT balance in a person's online account. These are NEGOTIABLE, and can be divvied up into smaller amounts and sent to anyone with an e-mail address.

As mentioned by gilby, these "virtual" gift certificates are actually CASH, and must be treated as such.

In a "bricks and mortar" shop, you can have bits of paper on which you print the words "Gift Certificate" and you can give these a face value of, say $100. It's up to you then, if you want to sell these for $50 - but you will soon be bankrupted by a clever people who "obtain credit" for $50, then acquire goods to the value of $100.

What if I use my $50 gift certificate (now redeemable at $100) to buy two more $50 certificates? ... Then I use those two to buy FOUR... then EIGHT.... Then SIXTEEN. Continue with this exponential and you will soon be out of business!

Rather look at offering DISCOUNT VOUCHERS (can be easily set up in ZC).

[anoop]

Thanks school boy for the quick reply,

In my case i have set it in a way that Gift certificates cannot be bought using gift certificates and each customer has an online GC account they can use to buy products, But it is that i dont have much control over gift certificates' credited value. So i have asked the questions and also discounts cannot be applied to gift certificates. Now i will have a look at the discount coupons.

[anoop]

Hi guys, i finally went with Gift Certificates, i got a feeling that discount coupons aren't the one i am after. Well i created a new field in product adding page for the gv_amount where admin can specify Then showed it in product display page, to cart and checkout page; also had to modify them to show in orders page in admin side, customer my account and also the emails. Also i had make sure that Gift certificates cannot be bought with gift certificates. Done this at payment page
Also removed sending redemption code to customers.
Took some time about 2 weeks to do all these, finally project completed and delivered to client.

Many Thanks for all your help and support