This is Part 2 of our E-Gift Cards Tip of the Week. You can read Part 1 here.

This Tip of the Week will teach you how to process an order when someone buys an E-gift Card, process an order when someone pays with an E-Gift Card, and check the balance of an E-Gift Card when a customer calls and asks.

Now that you’ve set up E-Gift Cards for purchase in your online store, let’s imagine a scenario: Say your customer John Doe has bought an E-Gift Card for his sister Jane. He’s added the product to his cart, paid with a credit card, and completed his order.

Here are your next steps:

First, you must process and close John’s order to activate the E-Gift Card he bought for his sister. It’s imperative that you do this, because if you don’t, John’s credit card will not be charged, the E-Gift Card won’t be activated, and Jane will never get her thoughtful gift from her brother, which might make the next family gathering a bit awkward.

Open up Desktop Engine and the Order Manager. Find John’s Pending Order by viewing all pending orders or by searching a date range or order number. Click once on John’s pending order and scroll down to “Order Actions.”
Click “Ship All – YES” and then the “Billing” button to process the credit card.

Once you’ve captured funds from the credit card, you must close the order to activate the E-Gift Card. In the “Order Status” box, click the drop down menu and change the order from “Pending” to “Closed.” Click “Update” to save changes.

Now you’re ready to notify the recipient — in this case, Jane. In the line item detail of the order, double click the check mark under the P/G column to open the E-Gift Card Order Manager.

The E-Gift Card Order Manager displays the details of the card, including the Gift Card Number, PIN, and Expiration. It shows who gave the E-Gift Card and the recipients name and e-mail, along with any message your customer sent to the recipient. Assuming all information is accurate, click the Send Email to send the E-Gift Card to the Recipient.

Once Jane gets the e-mail, she’ll shoot over to your store with money burning a hole in her pocket. She finds a few products she likes, adds them to her cart, and starts her checkout. On the first checkout page, Jane will enter her billing and shipping details as usual. Then she will enter the E-Gift Card number and PIN she received in the e-mail from us. She can check the balance first by clicking the “View E-Gift Card Value” link.

Jane completes the checkout process and the order is charged to her E-Gift Card balance. If Jane were to buy more than her E-Gift Card covers, she would be prompted for an additional form of payment, like a credit card, on the Payment Information page of the checkout process.

In our example here, Jane doesn’t use her whole gift card. She can check the balance herself on the first page of checkout as we previously mentioned, but Jane loves to call for help so she phones you to ask what her balance is.

We open up CartGenie Desktop Engine, click the Products menu, and “E-Gift Card Manager.” Down in the bottom left corner, click the “E-Gift Card Sales” button.

Find the E-Gift Card in question and double click the checkbox in the first column to view that E-Gift Card’s transactions.

Here you can see all transactions for this card as well as the balance at the bottom.

Great news Jane: you’ve got more money you can spend at our online store.

John gave a great gift, Jane got a great gift, and we grew our revenue.
Great job!

CartGenie Tip of the Week is a weekly series in which we review ways to use a feature in CartGenie.  Be sure to check back each Wednesday and learn something new!

If you missed last week’s post on Increasing Sales with the Promotion Manager, you can find it here.

To watch a video tutorial of this tip, click here.

E-Gift Cards, gift cards, gift certificates — whatever you call them, they’re a great way to build your business and grow your revenue. You may already know that you have customers coming to your site to buy gifts, but what if they can’t choose which one of your products to give? That’s where E-Gift Cards come in.

The gift card industry is a $37 billion-dollar-a-year industry. CartGenie’s E-Gift Card Manager lets you get your piece of this growing pie. Today, we’ll look at how to set up E-Gift Cards for your customers to buy.

We’ll start, as usual, in CartGenie Desktop Engine. Click on “Products,” then “E-Gift Card Manager.”

Once the E-Gift Card Manager has opened, you can create your E-Gift Card product.

In the “Product Name” field, decide what you want to call your E-Gift Card. You can choose any name you like: “E-Gift Card,” “Gift Certificate,” or something creative that fits your company or your product. Select your Category from the drop down list. (If you need to, you can add a new category first using Category Navigator).

Back in the E-Gift Card Manager, select a Sub-Category if applicable. Choose a brand. (If you need to add a new brand, you can do so in Brand Manager which is also found in the Products menu). Choose whether or not you want the E-Gift Card to be displayed. We’ll choose “Yes.”

Next, you’ll choose when you’d like the gift card to expire. You can choose “Never” or from 1-5 years from the purchase date. Let’s choose 2 years from the date it’s bought.

In the “Title Tag” field, you put whatever text you want to have displayed at the top of the web browser. The Meta Description is what will show up in search engine results and Meta Keywords are the keywords a search engine will attach to this page.

Lastly, in the Description field you’ll want to put in the actual description of this product talking about its key features, how awesome it is, and why your customers would want to buy it.

Now we’ll decide in what denominations to offer E-Gift Cards. Let’s choose $25, $50, $75, and $100 dollars.

Click “Add/Update” and you’re ready to start selling E-Gift Cards!

Join us next week to learn about processing orders when someone buys an E-Gift Card, processing orders when someone pays with an E-Gift Card, and managing E-Gift Card Balances.