Create and Sell Gift Cards

Corey Wright

A gift card is a pre-paid form of payment that a shopper can use to make a purchase at a specific retailer. Gift cards are an excellent way for retailers to encourage their loyal customers to treat friends and family to products the retailer offers.

With CommentSold, retailers can create a gift card product on their Products page. Gift card recipients can apply their gift card toward a purchase they make with your business. Learn more about how shoppers can redeem gift cards here.

Note: In general, gift cards are considered deferred revenue for accounting purposes. This means the revenue should be recorded as an accounting liability until the shopper who received the gift card redeems it. Once redeemed, the liability becomes a sales transaction and cancels out the initial liability. We recommend you reach out to an accounting professional if you have further questions about accounting liability.

How Gift Cards Benefit Your Business

Makes it easy for loyal customers to incentivize friends and family to make a purchase with your business.
Converts new-to-you shoppers into loyal customers.
Encourages shoppers to make larger purchases since a portion of the purchase is pre-paid.

Expected Behaviors

Gift Cards can be discounted using the “sale” field in the product details
Gift Cards can be used to pre-authorize
Gift Cards can’t be discounted using coupon codes
Gift Cards can’t be purchased with store credit

Enable Gift Cards

Before your business can sell gift cards, you must enable the Gift Card feature in your CommentSold account.

Select Setup in the side menu of your CommentSold dashboard.
Select Shop from the menu at the top of the page.
In the Selling Preferences section on the right side of the page, locate Gift Cards.
Select the toggle so it appears as Enabled.

Create a Gift Card

Select Products in the side menu of your CommentSold dashboard.
Select Add New Gift Card Product from Add Products drop-down at the top of the page.
Complete the following fields:
- Product Name. Name the product Gift Card or something similar.
- SKU. Enter a SKU for the product.
- Description. Add a description if required.
- Use a different description for Mobile devices. Select the checkbox if you wish to add a different description to the Mobile app.
- App Description. Add an app description if required.
Select +Add Denomination and enter Name, Amount, and Sale Price.
Select + Upload Images and upload an image you wish to use for the product.
Once done, select Save and Publish.

Sell Gift Cards

Retailers can sell gift cards on their webstore and mobile app just like any other product. Retailers also have the option to sell gift cards on social platforms like Facebook.

To sell gift cards in your webstore, you'll need to publish the gift card product to your online store.

Select Products in the side menu of your CommentSold dashboard.
Locate your gift card product and select the three-dot icon on the far right of the row.
Select Post to Webstore from the drop-down.
Select where you wish to publish the Gift card.
Select when you wish to publsih the Gift card.
Once done, select Publish now.

Once you publish, shoppers can see the gift card product, choose their desired denomination, and add it to their cart.

Note: Shoppers cannot use discount codes when purchasing gift cards.

Select Products in the side menu of your CommentSold dashboard.
Locate your gift card product and select the three-dot icon on the far right of the row.
Select Post to App.
Enter a Post Message, if desired.
Enter an App Notification Title and App Notification Body if you wish to send a push notification about the new product to those shoppers with notifications enabled.
Select Save Post at the bottom of the page.

When advertising gift cards on your Facebook business page or group, you can automatically make the post shoppable. Simply ensure you've enabled the Autolink to post toggle on your Social Setup page.

Once enabled, you can include # and the gift card SKU (seen in the picture to the left as #GF100) in the post description.

Including the SKU allows shoppers to comment "SOLD" followed by the denomination (e.g., 10, 15, 20, 25, etc.) to cart the product.

You also have the option to manually link a Facebook post to the gift card product. Learn more about manual linking here.

Re-Send Gift Card Emails

When a shopper purchases a gift card, they will receive an email with the digital code to use in the Coupon field during checkout.

If a shopper needs their code provided again, you can re-send the gift card email.

Select Products in the side menu of your CommentSold dashboard.
Select Gift Cards from the options listed at the top of the page.
Locate the shopper's gift card product and select the three-dot icon on the far right of the row.
Select Resend Email.
Confirm this action by selecting Confirm in the pop-up.