Selling gift cards online

You can sell digital gift cards from your own website through 3 channels. They take much the same setup, so the main decision is who you want to be able to buy.

The widget is open to anyone. Someone who has never heard of your loyalty programme can land on your site and buy a gift card, without logging in.
The contacts portal, for contacts is for members. A contact who has logged in buys a gift card from the portal's Giftcards page.
The contacts portal, for guests is open to anyone. Anyone with the link to your portal's buy gift card page can buy a gift card there, without an account and without logging in.

If gift cards are a way to reach people who aren't contacts yet, you want the widget or the guest page. If they're a perk for people already in the programme, the portal for contacts is enough. Nothing stops you from running all of them.

Set these up first, whichever channel you use

A payment integration with Mollie or Stripe, so buyers can actually pay. Once your payment provider is connected, purchases through the portal and the widget are processed by it. See Linking a Mollie account or Linking a Stripe account.
Your gift card emails, for both the recipient and the buyer. These are what deliver the card, so a sale with no email configured leaves the buyer with nothing.
The amounts buyers can choose, on the gift card programme you sell from. See The amounts buyers can choose below.

Go to Apps → Widget, click View on your widget and then Edit widget.
On the Content tab, drag the Giftcard element from Widget elements into the Overview page.
Click the element and choose the programme under Select giftcard program. The widget sells cards from that programme and offers its amounts. You can also give it a Giftcard image. Until a programme is selected, the widget on your website doesn't show the element.
Click Save changes.
If you haven't set a default payment provider under Settings → Payment provider, check that a Payment integration is selected on the widget's Payments page. When you have a default payment provider, it takes the widget's payments whatever is selected there.

The buyer picks an amount and fills in their own name and email address, the recipient's name and email address, and optionally a personal message. A contact who is logged in to the widget has their own details filled in already. Payment opens in a new tab and brings the buyer back to your site afterwards.

To turn the widget into a pure gift card shop, make Giftcard its only element and switch off Show login page on the Request a code page and Show register page on the Register page. See How to configure the design of your widget.

To open the gift card shop from a button or menu item on your own site, use the command on the widget's Advanced page. See How to install the loyalty widget on your website.

Selling through the contacts portal, for contacts

Go to Apps → Contacts portal and click Edit contact portal.
Under Settings, make sure Payment method has your payment provider and Giftcard program has the programme the cards should come from. The portal and its guest page offer that programme's amounts.
Under Settings → Features, check that Sell gift cards is on. It's on by default when your account has gift cards, so you only need to turn it on if it was switched off.
On the Content tab, open Giftcards in the left-hand menu. It holds these pages:
- Overview, the page contacts land on. Here you set the Title and Subtitle of its Buy gift card and Check balance blocks.
- Under Buy gift card: Details of the recipient, where you can change the Subtitle, and Confirmation.
- Under Giftcard balance: Check balance. It's only available while Gift card balance checker is on.

Contacts then buy from the portal's Giftcards page. The same page can also hold the Gift card balance checker, which anyone can use without logging in. See Finding gift card balances and transactions.

Selling through the contacts portal, for guests

The guest page lets someone buy a gift card from your portal without logging in or signing up. It lives at your portal's address followed by /buy-giftcard, for example yourcompany.app.leat.com/buy-giftcard.

Switch it on

Do the portal setup above, so Payment method, Giftcard program and Sell gift cards are in place.
Under Settings → Features, open Gift cards and turn on Sell gift cards to guests. Guests can only buy while Sell gift cards is on too. With either one off, the address sends people to your portal's login page instead.
If the switch is greyed out, gift cards need to be switched on for your account first. Hover over it for Manage account features.

Go to Apps → Contacts portal and click Share next to your portal's address. While Sell gift cards and Sell gift cards to guests are both on, the Share window has a Link to buy gift card page, described as "Lets anyone buy a gift card without an account". Use Copy link or Download QR code to put it on your website, in a newsletter or in print.

What the buyer sees

The page has 2 steps, with a progress bar and Step 1 of 2 above them.

The gift. The buyer picks one of your fixed amounts. When the programme lets buyers enter their own amount, they can also pick Other… and type any amount. Under Who is it for? they fill in the recipient's First name, Last name and Email, and a Message of up to 200 characters. All 4 are required. A preview of the gift card and the total show next to the form, or below it on a phone. Continue to checkout moves on.
Checkout. Under Your details the buyer fills in their own First name, Last name and Email (for your receipt). The Order summary has an Edit link back to step 1. Pay and the amount takes them to the secure payment page of your payment provider.

At the top of both steps, the header shows the logo from your portal's Login page, when you've switched it on there, and your portal's name when you haven't. Next to it is a Check balance button. It opens a window where anyone can enter the code of a gift card to see the Remaining balance, the last 4 characters of the card, when it expires and, when the programme has locations, where it can be used. It doesn't take the buyer out of their order.

Customise the guest pages

In the portal editor, open the Content tab and look under Guest view in the left panel. Open Giftcards, then Buy gift card:

Gift: the Title of the first step, and a Subtitle you switch on to show.
Checkout: nothing to set. It shows what the buyer fills in and pays.
Confirmation: the page the buyer returns to after paying.

The guest pages stay locked, with a link to Features settings, until both switches are on. Click Save changes to make your changes live.

After the buyer pays

The buyer comes back to a confirmation page that says Thank you! Your giftcard is on its way. The recipient gets the gift card by email within a few minutes, and the buyer gets an order confirmation email.

If the payment provider hasn't confirmed the payment after about a minute, the page says the gift card is sent as soon as the payment is confirmed, and that the buyer can leave the page. If nothing arrives after 15 minutes, the page tells the buyer to check their spam folder or email your support address. See How to check if a recipient received their digital gift card.

Both the buyer and the recipient are added to your contacts by their email address, if they aren't contacts yet. A contact who already exists keeps the details they have. Names typed in by a buyer don't change someone else's profile.

Every online order shows up under Store → Giftcards, in the sidebar under Online sales → Orders, for the programme the card was sold from. You can export them from there.

The amounts buyers can choose

Each gift card programme has its own amounts. Buyers pick one of them, or, when the programme allows it, enter an amount of their own within the programme's minimum and maximum. Like prepaid credit, an amount can carry a bonus: the buyer pays one amount and the card is loaded with more.

To add an amount:

Go to Store → Giftcards and pick the programme on the programme card at the top of the sidebar.
In the sidebar, under Online sales, click Configuration.
Under Giftcard values, click Add option, or Create product option when the programme has none yet.
Fill in a Name, which is what buyers see, and add a Description and Image if you like.
Enter the Payable amount, what the buyer pays, and the Receivable amount, what the card is loaded with. Both are in your currency, for example 45 for €45.
Click Create.

Click an amount in the list to change or delete it, and drag the handle in front of a row to change the order buyers see them in.

Giving a bonus

Make the Receivable amount higher than the Payable amount: a payable amount of 45 with a receivable amount of 50 means the buyer pays €45 and the card holds €50. The Bonus column shows the difference, and buyers see both amounts when they pick the option. The receivable amount can't be lower than the payable amount.

Letting buyers enter their own amount

At the top of the same page, Let buyers enter their own amount decides whether buyers can type an amount next to your fixed ones. It's on by default. Turn it off to only sell the amounts you've set up: the widget and the contacts portal then hide the field for a custom amount. Turn it off on a programme without any amounts and buyers can't order a gift card at all, which the page warns you about.

If a programme has no amounts and custom amounts are on, the widget offers 25, 50 and 75 in your currency.

Good to know

A custom amount never gets a bonus. The card is loaded with exactly what the buyer pays. Only your fixed amounts can carry one.
Keep each amount within the programme's limits. An amount whose payable amount is below the programme's Minimum purchase amount, or whose receivable amount is above its Maximum amount, is still shown to buyers, but it's refused when they try to pay.
Changing an amount doesn't change orders already paid. Buyers who bought it keep what they got.
Each channel offers its own programme's amounts. The widget uses the programme chosen in its Giftcard element, and the contacts portal the one under Giftcard program in the portal's settings.

You can also ask the AI assistant to list a programme's gift card amounts, add one or change one.