Gift Certificate Help Please

One thing,

If she initially purchased the GV AND the merchandise, at the same time, then of course the GV would not have been available right then for her to spend on the merchandise, because you have to RELEASE the GV to her after you make sure you are going to get paid. So, in that case, of course she had to pay for the merchandise straight away, but she now should have $12 sitting in her GV balance, and, if she insists on using the $12 for that particular merchandise, then you and she can still take care of it with the steps above. It does seem pretty crazy that someone would spend, say, $12 on a GV at the exact same time as spending $12 on merchandise, and then want to apply the $12 of GV funds to cover the merchandise at that exact same time. That seems wacko to me..

Hi,

I get it ...

To clarify, the place on page 2 of checkout, to put the amount of GV funds to apply to the order, will only appear to her, because only she has GV money sitting in a GV balance. That 'apply GV money' box is not seen by anyone else, so you can't see it when you test page 2 yourself, unless of course you personally have a GV balance. See attached image.

So, you could follow the solution above with swapping money from you to her in exchange for her GV money from her to you, or she could buy more stuff from you and spend the GV money then. :)

Ohhhhhhhh.... ok. (wish those info were accompanied with screenshots in the tutorial section!)
Sending that info to the customer now.

However, i guess i will be out $12 now, since i cannot remove it from her, after re-issueing one for her friend (she had given me her email address). Oh well, lesson learned!

Lucky for me, GV are not frequent!

yeah, you can't yank it out of her hands, so to speak, but if you simply 'gave' $12 to her friend because the original shopper failed to do something obvious on page 2, then you could ask original shopper to e-mail her GV balance to you via GV Send feature. Then, it will be as though the original shopper gifted that 12 bucks to the friend, and everyone would be square money-wise.

Now, customer just used that GV (with my suggestion so her level of frustration will go down!) so that is solved.

Next time CustomerA buys a GV for FriendB, how should i handle it so she gets a code to email a friend as i surely did something wrong here. Do i release it just like that? Or should i send more explicit instructions on how CustomerA should send the "money" to FriendB?

(it is kind of obscure!)

it's easier than that. If shopper A buys a GV, then uses the GV Send feature to send it to a friend B, the friend B will get the redeem code when B gets the e-mail about being the recipient of a wonderful gift cert. You don't have to do anything. B will then go to your store and redeem the GV by using the code, then B will have a GV balance. The only hitch is if B does the redeeming on page 2 of checkout. The next page will be page 3, and no GV funds are automatically applied (since a shopper may or may not want to use GV funds when redeeming GV certs), so if that happens, friend B, while sitting on page 3, would have to have the wherewithal to return to page 2 to enter the amount to apply. This is a common problem with landing someone on page 3 after redemption occurs on page 2. The Zen team may be looking at a better way of letting the page 3 customer know to go back to page 2, or you could code in a short note at the top of page 3 "if you want to spend GV funds you just redeemed, then go back to page 2" or something like that.

it's easier than that. If shopper A buys a GV, then uses the GV Send feature to send it to a friend B, the friend B will get the redeem code when B gets the e-mail about being the recipient of a wonderful gift cert.
Do you mean i should not have to "release" anything or is that AFTER i release it?
(i think i will definitely email detailed instructions to the purchaser next time!)

yes, you will still have to release to shopper A buyer, of course, I skipped that part because I thought we had covered that ground. :)

You just won't have to do anything about friend B .. B will get the redeem code and should be able to handle her shopping from there. But as I mentioned, there is room for B to make errors, just like your shopper did tonight.

It's really a pretty good system, when the shopper pays attention to what is happening.

(you should take that text off your page about a buyer needing to e-mail the GV funds to herself if she wants to use them herself; that is not true -- she can use them straight away after you release, i.e., after you get paid.)

when the shopper pays attention to what is happening.
Yeah! LOL

Thanks for all the help.

You're welcome, glad to help.

Ajeh:

Example would be just like in the demo products ...

NOTE: it is a good idea to setup a clean Zen Cart of the current version in a clean directory with a separate clean database and load the demo products so you can see all of the functionality of Zen Cart ...

First, set up an Option Name in the Option Name Manager such as:
Amount
Radiobutton

Next, in the Options Values Manager set up the names as:
Option Name: Amount
Option Value: $5.00 (note this is text)
Default sort order 5

Option Name: Amount
Option Value: $10.00 (note this is text)
Default sort order 10

Option Name: Amount
Option Value: $15.00 (note this is text)
Default sort order 15

Option Name: Amount
Option Value: $25.00 (note this is text)
Default sort order 25

Then, go to the Product and setup as:
Price by Attribute: YES
Product Price: 0.00
Product is Virtual: YES
Product Model: GIFT (note: this must start with the word GIFT in uppercase and then you can add anything after that to the model)
Product Quantity: 1000 (or whatever)

Finally go to Attributes Controller and locate this Product ...

Add each Attribute:

Option Name: Amount
Option Value: $5.00
Price: 5.00
Default: YES

Option Name: Amount
Option Value: $10.00
Price: 10.00

Option Name: Amount
Option Value: $15.00
Price: 15.00

Option Name: Amount
Option Value: $25.00
Price: 25.00

When done ... click the button for Update Sort Order and the default Sort Orders will be set ...

Hi

I have done all the above and it shows up fine, however the total value doesnt add up.

eg - if you select £25.00 it still shows as £0.00 on the far right hand side.

Any ideas?

Just noticed if I do it like the top line it works as £10.00 :huh:

I'm doing something wrong somewhere, anyone have any ideas?

What did you do to the one at the top that works that you did not do to the rest that do not work?

Just added £10.00 into the section with the red circle (see below)

The thing is surely I don't need to have £10.00 twice for it to work, surely I am missing or doing something wrong?

You need to put the price somewhere ...

The Product should be:
Priced by Attribute YES

with the Product Price:
0.00

Then the Attributes are made from the Option Name and Option Value ...

the Option Value is just a text .... it is not a price of the Gift Certificate but a text description of the Option Value of what the Price is ... and that Price is put on the individual Attributes in the Price input box that you have circled ...

Ah ok, thank you!

I am trying to use gift certificates ONLY as credit notes. I find I can do this simply by going to the admin page and emailing the certificate. My problem is that if there is only PART usage of a cerificate I lose access to the balance as it reports as redeemed. How can you part use a certificate? I also cannot email the balance because it says it is redeemed.

How does one get an email when a gift certificate is purchased? When merchandise is purchased, an email is sent to me stating as much. But when a gift certificate is purchased, I am not notified so I don't know to release the GC. Since this site is not as active as some other sites I have, I go on it two or three times a week. Hate to have someone wait a day or two to have the GC released. Thankie!!

I am trying to create a discount coupon to allow certain very good customers to purchase just gift certificates at a discounted rate - Is this possible??

By design, the purchase of a Gift Certificates cannot use Discount Coupons ...

You could make a regular Product, that does not use the products_module starting with:
GIFT

and have the Discount Coupon made for this one Product with a 1 use per customer and 1 use total ...

Then set the Restriction on the Discount Coupon to only allow this one Product ...

Once Purchased, you can then mail the Customer a Gift Certificate from the Admin for the amount that you wanted them to get it for ...

Then, when they redeem the Gift Certificate they will have the full amount that you intended ...