Gift cards are a great way to allow your clients to gift your services to other pet lovers in their life (or to themself!). Unlike standard service credits or cash credits, gift cards may be sold to one customer and used by another. Once redeemed, the gift card recipient can apply their gift as a cash credit towards any of your available services. In this guide we will take a look at everything you need to know about selling gift cards.
Locating Existing Gift Cards
To locate and edit your gift cards, you will need to navigate to your account's Gift Cards page. Start by clicking the gear icon in the bottom-left corner of any page in BusyPaws.
Then select "Gift Cards" under the "Product Configuration" section.
This page lists all of the existing gift cards on your account. Each gift card is listed with its name, its dollar value/price, a count of total purchases, and a count of total redemptions.
Select the name or pencil icon for any listed gift card to open the Edit Gift Card page, where you can adjust the name and/or amount associated with the gift card.
Click the trash can icon next to any listed gift card to delete it.
This will open a confirmation pop-up. Click "Continue" to delete the chosen gift card or "Cancel" to go back.
This action cannot be undone. Once a gift card has been deleted you will not be able to recover it.
Deleting a gift card will not prevent clients from redeeming previous purchases of that gift card.
Select the number listed under the "Total Purchases" or "Total Redemptions" column for any gift card to see a list of clients that have previously purchased or redeemed that gift card.
Creating a Gift Card
To create a new gift card on your BusyPaws account, start by navigating to your Gift Cards page.
Click the "Add Gift Card" button at the top of the page.
The New Gift Card page contains two fields. The first field is used to name the gift card. This name will be used to identify the gift card and is listed on the invoice when it is purchased. The second field is used to set the amount associated with the gift card. This value controls the amount that customers will pay when purchasing it and the value of the cash credit that becomes available when the gift card is redeemed.
When ready, click the "Create Gift Card" button. This will save your new gift card and take you back to the main Gift Cards page.
Selling Gift Cards
Much like retail products, gift cards are sold through the manual invoicing process. When a client wishes to purchase one of your gift cards, start by navigating to their profile page. From there, select the "Actions" button and choose "Invoice" from the drop-down menu.
That will open the New Invoice page. To include a gift card on the invoice, start by clicking the "Add Line Item" button or the pencil icon next to the default custom line item.
Use the search bar at the top of the resulting pop-up to find the desired gift card by name or set the filter to "Gift Cards".
When an gift card is selected, the "Description" field will auto-populate the name of the chosen gift card, the "Quantity" will default to 1, and the gift card's amount will display for the "Unit Cost".
Changes to the unit cost for a gift card will also change its value. The cash credit added to a customer's profile when a gift card is redeemed will always match the amount paid for that gift card.
For more information about the manual invoice process, check out our guide on Invoicing From Customer Profiles.
Discounts and taxes do not apply to gift cards on invoices. In addition, refunding an invoice used to purchase a gift card will not prevent that gift card from being redeemed.
Gift Card Redemption
Once an invoice containing a gift card has been paid in full, the paying customer will receive an email with a unique code that can be used to redeem their gift card. The client can then either log in to redeem the gift card themself or send the code to the person to whom they wish to give it.
Any client looking to redeem a gift card must first log into their Private Client Portal account. For information on the best ways to direct your clients to their private portal, see our help guide on Providing Client Portal Access.
After logging in, the customer need only click/hover their mouse over their profile photo icon at the bottom-left corner of the page, then choose "Redeem Gift Card" from the account menu.
This will open the gift card redemption page. Here, clients can enter the code for their gift card.
After entering their code and clicking the "Redeem" button the appropriate amount of cash credits will be added to their profile for use towards future bookings and invoices.
For more information on cash credits, check out our help guide on Creating & Using Customer Credits. To learn more about invoicing, see our guides on Invoice Basics and Invoicing From Customer Profiles.