PW WooCommerce Gift Cards Pro

A gift card is a sale to somebody who is not your customer

There sits what makes it special, and what almost never gets explained when it is sold as one more shop feature.

In any other sale, the person paying and the person using are the same. In a gift card they are not: somebody who already knows you pays, and somebody who had never heard of you uses it. It is the only sale in your catalogue that brings you a new customer, and it brings them paid in advance and with a friend's implicit recommendation attached.

Which is why gift cards do not compete with your products: they multiply them. And why they pay off so well in the weeks before the holidays, when half your customers are looking for something to give and do not want to get the size wrong.

What it brings

• A PDF card, so the recipient can print it or show it.
• A bonus card: giving extra balance for buying a card, of the buy twenty-five and get five kind.
• An improved email designer, with images, so the notification does not look like an invoice.
• Custom amounts, so the buyer decides the value.
• Quick selling, without building a separate system.

The bonus card is cleverer than it looks

Offering five free for buying twenty-five looks like a twenty per cent discount, and it is not. There are two differences that change the whole sum.

The first: the extra five is not a discount, it is a second visit. Whoever receives the twenty-five card is one person, and the bonus balance usually stays with the buyer, who was already a customer. With one order you have activated two different people.

The second: almost nobody spends exactly the amount. With a twenty-five card, the average purchase comes out above it, and the customer covers the difference themselves. That behaviour is so consistent that in many businesses the effective discount ends up considerably lower than the nominal one.

When you offer it matters too: in the cart and at checkout during November and December, when the buyer is already deciding on the present.

The legal detail: expiry

It is what to confirm before putting a date on the card, because it varies and in some places it is expressly regulated.

There are countries where gift card expiry carries a compulsory minimum period, and others where they simply cannot expire. The underlying logic is the same everywhere: the customer paid money, and that money is theirs until they spend it.

On top of that, in accounting terms the amount is not income on the day the card is sold, but on the day it is redeemed. Until then it is an outstanding obligation in your books.

None of this complicates the product, but it is exactly the kind of thing worth asking your accountant once and settling.

Requirements

It needs WordPress and WooCommerce.

Alternatives in the catalogue

Worth not confusing three similar things that solve different problems.

A gift card is bought by one person for another, and it is what this plugin does. A wallet is the customer's own balance, typical in prepayment and refunds: Wallet System for WooCommerce builds it in the online shop and the OpenPOS and TeraWallet integration takes it to the counter too. And a points programme is a reward you give: WPLoyalty builds points, rewards and referrals, and Points and Rewards for OpenPOS takes it to the physical shop's till.

Of the three, the gift card carries the fewest legal strings and is the only one that brings you new people.

And if what you want is raising average order value rather than acquiring customers, that is another piece: UpsellWP places cross-selling in the cart and at checkout.

Frequently asked questions

Is it delivered as a PDF?
Yes, the recipient can view and print it as a PDF file.

Can I give extra balance for buying a card?
Yes, with the bonus card, and it usually pays back better than an equivalent discount.

Does the buyer choose the amount?
Yes, it supports custom amounts.

Can the cards expire?
That depends on the country, and several have minimum periods or ban expiry. Worth confirming.

When does it count as income?
On redemption, not on sale. Until then it is an outstanding obligation.

How does it differ from a wallet?
The card is bought by one person for another; the wallet is the customer's own balance.