Gift card denominations
Sets the fixed amounts customers can buy a gift card in. Needs the Gift cards feature. You're not creating cards here — you're deciding which values are on sale.
Adding a denomination
| Field | What to put |
|---|---|
| Amount | The face value, e.g. 25 for a £25 card. |
| Sort | Controls the order they appear to the customer. Lower shows first; leave at 0 and they order by amount. |
| Active | On by default. Untick to take a value off sale without deleting it. |
A sensible ladder is 10 / 20 / 25 / 50. Every row in Your denominations is editable in place — change the amount or sort and save that row.
How a gift card actually works
- Buying one is an ordinary purchase; the card is issued with a unique code once the order is paid.
- At checkout a customer enters the code and it comes off the total. A partly-used card keeps its remaining balance for next time.
- Applying one is reversible right up until they pay — a shopper can take it back off and the order is payable in full again. Nothing is spent until the order completes.
- Refunds can be issued to a gift card — see the returns article — which is how you give money back without putting it on a card.
The code exists only in the customer's email. It is minted the moment the order is paid and sent to whoever bought it — and it is shown nowhere in this admin. You cannot look one up, and neither can we. Someone who has lost their code needs the email it came in; tell them to search their inbox for your shop's name. That's deliberate: stored value that staff can read off a screen is stored value that walks out of the shop.
What a shopper sees when a code is refused
One message covers three situations — "That gift card code is not valid." — and nothing comes off the order:
- They mistyped it, or it was never a code from your shop.
- It has already been spent. The balance comes off when the order using it is paid, so a code cannot be spent twice, and a second attempt reads exactly like a wrong code.
- It belongs to a different shop. Codes are yours alone.
If a customer insists their card had money left, ask which order they last used it on — the balance came off there.
Good to know
Deactivating or deleting a denomination only stops new cards being sold at that value. Cards already out there keep working — you can't strand a customer's balance by tidying this list. Repricing a row changes what the storefront offers from then on; a card someone already bought keeps the value they paid for.