reloading gift cards for multiple people

[stefarama]

Hi All.  I have a client who has 3 daughters who are also my clients. She wants to buy them each egift cards and keep refilling them over time so her daughters don't have to pay for their hair when they come in without mom. It's her little treat to them. Is there a way to keep reloading the daughter's cards from the mom's account without buying new egift cards each time?  I'm new to the egift card thing and have not used them yet. This seems like an easy function in theory, but I want to know exactly what to do before she buys them. I can easily make a note on mom's account what the gift card numbers are for each daughter to keep track, if that would help.

@pessosices  do you have any ideas?  I see you have tons of great answers regarding gift cards in other threads. 🙂

[pessosices · Accepted solution]

Hey @stefarama 

That's a really great question!

So as of now it's a feature request for customers to be able to self-reload gift cards through the online egift card portal.

It would be really huge for this to happen, so hopefully they implement it soon!

In the meantime, it's a drop more work, but it is doable in-person at your store - As long as the customer has the full 16 digit number for the egift card!

The customer would come in and say they want to reload their card (both egift and plastic work for this.)

On your POS device, you would tap on "Gift Card", then "Sell Physical Gift Card", and then you would type in the 16 digit code instead of swiping a physical card. You would then select the $Value amount, and have them pay, and you're all set!

Hope this helps, and let me know if you have any more questions!
Pesso

[stefarama]

@pessosices Thank you!!  Doing it manually is not a big deal, she's a regular and I can utilize the notes section to keep track.  This gets me thinking though... could I as the business owner use this process to offer a gift card to the mom (and anyone else) and load it with $10 here and there as a reward for referrals she sends my way?  So far I do this on paper but wondering if the gift card could make this easier? I could create a customer account for myself for this purpose, I'm thinking. If square had a feature for referrals, I would use it, but even the loyalty program uses points for visits and money spent, not referrals.  It sounds like this could be a workaround till they add the feature??

[pessosices]

Hey @stefarama - so great that it will work for you!

You totally can do this yourself in a few ways. 

If you want to stick to the gift card idea, you can just set up a 100% off discount and apply it to reloading or purchasing the gift card for them. 
You can also set up a discount code for purchasing eGift cards online. 

If you want to skip over the gift card part and just give them a discount on a sale, you can set up whatever % or $amount or even variable discount that you’d like and just apply it to their regular sales. 

Either one should work and I’m sure your customer would tremendously appreciate either one!

I also love the idea of a referral discount system! It’s a great feature request and I hope square implements it!

Let me know if you have any more questions or ideas!

[stefarama]

@pessosices  Love the 100% discount idea!  I was thinking the gift card because she actually sends me a lot of referrals. She's in several social groups (now online) and is always singing my praises, which is fantastic.  I've been keeping track to give her $ off for each one and she can save up and spend those on products, which has worked well.  However there have been a few times I've missed/forgotten to update her card when she came in, so the gift card would let me do it when the referral left and not up to my failing memory for when she came in herself. 😉

Thank you so so so very much!!!  

[pessosices]

@stefarama  - Sounds like a great plan to me!
Always happy to help!