Gift cards & store credit
Money that comes back to your store
Gift cards are emailed with the buyer's own message on the day they choose. Store credit turns a refund into a reason to shop again. Both are tracked to the cent, with a ledger behind every balance.
- Scheduled email delivery
- Multiple codes per order
- Refund to store credit
Availability: Included on every plan
How it fits together
Two kinds of balance, one checkout
Gift cards customers buy
Create a product of type Gift card and add amounts like 25, 50 and 100 as its variants. No shipping, no tax, and the buyer can send it to someone else.
Cards you issue
Create a card from the admin for a prize, an apology or a partnership — type your own code or let SellOrchard make one.
Store credit
A balance attached to a customer account, added by hand or by refunding an order to credit.
Paid in full
When cards and credit cover the whole order, checkout hides the payment step and says "Your gift card covers this order".
For the person giving
A gift that arrives with a note, on the right day
The gift-card product page asks who it's for. Buyers add the recipient's name and email, their own name, a message of up to 300 characters and an optional send date. Leave the email empty and the card goes to the buyer instead.
- Send dates up to 90 days ahead; scheduled cards go out within 15 minutes of their time
- The email shows the amount, the code, the message, the expiry and a link to your store
- Gift-card-only orders skip the delivery step at checkout
- Cards are created when the order is paid — including cash-on-delivery or bank-transfer orders you mark paid
At checkout
How a shopper spends a balance
Step 1: Enter one or more codes
Up to five gift-card codes per order. Spaces, dashes and lowercase letters are cleaned up automatically.
Step 2: See each card applied
The summary lists every card by its last four characters, what it covers and what's left on it.
Step 3: Add store credit
Signed-in shoppers tick "Use store credit" and see exactly how much is available.
Step 4: Pay what's left
Your payment gateway only charges the amount still due after cards and credit.
The full toolkit
Everything gift cards and store credit can do
21capabilities in 4 areas
Selling gift cards
5- Gift card as a product type, with amounts as variants
- Recipient email and name, sender name, personal message and send date
- "Send to me" option when the buyer wants to hand it over in person
- One card created per unit bought, emailed on the chosen date
- Discount codes don't apply to gift-card lines, and gift cards can't be used to buy gift cards
Managing cards
7- 16-character codes from an alphabet without look-alike characters, shown as XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX
- Codes stored encrypted; the full code is shown once when you issue a card
- Search by last four characters, full code, or recipient name or email
- Filter by active, used, expired or disabled
- Adjust a balance up or down with a required note
- Disable a card, change its expiry or recipient, and resend the email
- Optional default expiry from 1 to 120 months after issue
Store credit
4- A store-credit balance on every customer account, with its own history
- Add or remove credit by hand with a note
- Refund dialog lets you choose original payment or store credit
- Customers see their balance on their account page
Safe money handling
5- Every balance change is a ledger entry with the order and the person who made it
- Balances are locked and re-checked when an order is placed
- Cancelled or expired unpaid orders give the used amounts back automatically
- Refunds of part-card orders go through the gateway first, then back onto the cards
- Public balance-check page for shoppers, rate-limited against guessing
Included on every plan, trial too
Gift cards and store credit are part of every SellOrchard plan. During the free trial they work in test mode, and gift-card emails are delivered only to your own team.
Questions
Gift cards & store credit: answered
Still curious? The help center walks through every setting.
Can I sell gift cards in different amounts?
Yes. A gift-card product's variants are its amounts, so you can offer 25, 50 and 100 — or any values you like — and buyers pick one on the product page.
Can shoppers schedule a gift card for a birthday?
Yes. They can choose a send date up to 90 days ahead. The card is emailed to the recipient on that day with the buyer's message.
Do gift cards expire?
Only if you want them to. Set a default expiry between 1 and 120 months in Settings → Gift cards, or leave it empty so cards never expire. You can also change the expiry of a single card.
Can a shopper use more than one gift card on an order?
Yes, up to five codes per order, plus store credit if they're signed in. Whatever isn't covered is charged through your payment gateway.
How do I refund an order to store credit?
In the refund dialog, choose "Store credit" instead of the original payment. The amount is added to the customer's balance and shows on their account page. It needs the order to belong to a customer account.
How can a customer check their balance?
Your store has a balance-check page where they enter the code and see the remaining balance, the currency and any expiry date.
Start selling gift cards this week
Create a gift-card product, add your amounts and let shoppers send them with a message on the day that matters.
No credit card needed to start.