Third Party Gift Certificate

Hi
I am building a wedding portal and like the idea of Gift Certificates.
The lucky couple could be given vouchers to spend on wedding
services displayed on the site.
Would I end up being a sort of middle man between the wedding couple and the florist / photographer and so on. Could end up being a nightmare.

I am sure there is something I am missing here.
Anyone have any experience with this.

Cheers,
Baz.

The idea seems pretty sound - but Gift Certificates (GC's) in ZC are probably not geared up to handle it very effectively.

Essentially, GC's are nothing more than a Cash Credit that, like cash money, are "negotiable". They can only be "redeemed" through purchasing items in the ZC store from which they originate.

Or ... you sell to the "other store" $XXX.XX worth of Gift Certificates ... this is Cash, as fairestcape indicated, and then the "other store" can do one of 2 things:

1 Send some/all of the Gift Certificate balance to another person in email

2 Send some/all of the Gift Certificate balance to another email address than the one they bought it with, that is also their own, and this generates a Gift Certificate redemption code that they can hand to/print out and give physically to someone else

Now, if you are trying to manage where the Gift Certificate can be used as in I come to "your shop" and buy $500.00 in Gift Certificate and then I can run off to 1 or more shops and I get to spend that $500 somewhere else ... then you need to get trickier ...

Choices now are "who" buys/spends the money where?

Are you trying to "collect" money to be able to be spent at "your shop" or to be spent "somewhere else"?

Is someone trying to "collect" money to be spent at "your shop" or to be spent "somewhere else"?

You have to be careful in the use of Gift Certificates as they are "cash" ...

Perhaps Discount Coupons might work but then the "other shops" need to have some sort of relationship with the Discount Coupons ...

Is there any connection between you and the "other stores" other than you are more or less advertising them on your site?

Hi,
Thanks everyone for your replies.

I wondered how the system would work.
Here is how I would see it.

1. Someone would visit the site and buy the wedding couple
   a voucher to be redeemed at a later date against a wedding service.

[At this point I would assume this money would be in my (PAYPAL) account waiting to be used.]

So far so good.

2. The wedding couple then visit the site and use their voucher to pay all or part
   of a wedding service or services.

Here is where I am not clear.
As some of the services do not have a facility to accept payment I wonder if the SPENT vouchers
are still in my account?? Then I would need to use some sort of system to pass that payment on
to the wedding service provider?

That way there would not be any hard copy vouchers to worry about, and everything comes
through the site??

I am not in the wedding business but have built sites for wedding services.
Hope this makes sense.

Cheers,
Baz .

That is where you run into problems ...

How do you manage the funds of who holds what and when?

Does the wedding service give you certificates to sell?

Do you collect money then buy certificates from the wedding service?

Somewhere you have to decide how the funds are manged so you don't have to spend 1000s to make the services available ...

Hi,
I think I have figured it out.

As it is wedding services that are on offer and not products,
and the fact that these things will be booked weeks if not months in advance.

As you say a code is produces and sent to the customer
to redeem the certificate. At this point the money is in my PAYPAL account.

Only wedding businesses on the site may participate in the scheme.
Customers need not necessarily book their wedding service through the site.
Indeed it may be a good idea just to deal in vouchers, as a niche market.

So if the wedding couple say book a car for £150 from a participating business.
and have a voucher [code number] for £100
They could approach the car company with £50 plus the code number for £100.

The car company contacts me with this code number. I transfer the funds
to him via their PayPal account. As there are no goods changing hands I doubt
anyone would want to defraud us.

Would I have access to the Data Base via admin to retrieve the code numbers?

Do you think this hold water?

Thanks for putting up with me.
Cheers,
Baz.

As the other stores are not Zen Cart oriented, there isn't really a reason to use Gift Certificates ...

You want "someone" to come in and buy a "Gift Certificate" to the Little Wedding Shop ...

They pay you $50.00 for this ... in turn, you send a Gift Certificate to the buyer and the same code to the Little Wedding Shop ...

The "Gift Certificate" with the code for the $50.00 is then taken to the Little Wedding Shop by someone and used ...

Now, the Little Wedding Shop comes to you for money ...

Someone spent $50.00 for the Little Wedding Shop which goes to your PayPal account, or where ever, and you have that sitting in the bank ...

Now you owe the Little Wedding Shop some money and that is sent off to the Little Wedding Shop ... end of your dealings in this, as if no one claims it, you don't really care ...

Now if you use the Gift Certificate that is handy but doesn't truely help you in any way other than it generates a code ... but you could of done that manually ...

You need to determine is there an advantage to using the Gift Certificates in Zen Cart or would just making a Product for the Little Wedding Shop work just as well if not better as you can "stock" the Product with dollars on the quantity to know how much is purchased on that Product ...

Hi,
The idea is that the certificates are not wedding service/store specific and can
be redeemed from ANY of the participating services on the site. That the beauty of it.

If there were 50 wedding services on the site [these services would have a link built
into their sites saying they are participating in the scheme back to our site] offering
all sorts of wedding services. The wedding couple could use certificates across the board.
All they would have to do is produce a valid code to ANY wedding service provider
participating in the scheme. I would only deal in gift certificates.
I ain't gona get rich. I will give the service for free for the first year to see how it goes.

I am still wondering if I am able to retrieve the codes and amounts from the Data Base
otherwise it will not work.

Cheers,
Baz.

Grandma buys a $50 Gift Certifcate from your store on Monday at 9:00am ... she plans to give to this to little Tiny Tim next month ...

What does Grandma get from your after you get Grandma's money? A code? A Paper Certificate?

Hi,
Grandma only needs the code number.
Printed out if necessary. [I assume all code numbers are unique]
I suppose a hard copy could be an option if possible, but not necessary.

I only need to be able to retrieve the codes and amounts from the Data Base
to verify the authenticity before transferring the money. Can I do this??

OK there will be a PayPal transaction fee to pay.
That cost would have to be passed on to the wedding service business
by % involved.

I like the idea and would like to give it a go,
I just don't want to make mistakes because of something I don't understand.

Cheers,
Baz.