Gift certificates for brick & mortar store

[marcc]

I have a client who runs a brick & mortar store and wants to offer a way to purchase gift certificates online via credit card, then redeem the certificates in-store. Ideally there would be an email sent with details (like unique ID) that could be written on a PDF template and presented at the store.

Can anyone tell me the best way to do this, software-wise? The client has a merchant account and is willing to use it, or Paypal, or whatever works best.

Thanks!

[stevel]

Does the client have an existing online store? If so, using what cart software?

There is an osCommerce contribution (add-on) called "Credit Class and Gift Voucher" which includes the ability for customers to purchase gift certificates with unique codes generated. It's a bit awkward to use compared to the standard "buy a gift certificate online" methods, as you first purchase credits and then "spend" them to create one or more certificates. I can't say I'd recommend this if the client was not already using osCommerce, but it is a possibility.

[marcc]

Thanks for the reply, Stevel. The client does not have an existing online store. Indeed, we are starting from scratch. A few pages of HTML and the capability to order gift certificates online using a credit card are all they plan to have. The gift certificates will be printed out by the customer and redeemed in-store. The client does have a merchant account for their B&M store.

I'm getting uncomfortably close to the point where I have to implement this, so any ideas on how to get something like this rolling would be very much appreciated. We just need a way to let people buy those gift certs.

Thanks,

Marc

[stevel]

Check out CRE Loaded (www.creloaded.com). This is osCommerce with many popular contributions preinstalled, including the gift voucher one I mentioned. (None of mine, though - hmph...) I have not used this myself, but it is fairly popular.

The real issue I have with the CCGV contribution is the nonintuitive method of buying gift certificates, as it is a two-step process. Maybe someday I'll see how hard it would be to streamline this to be more of what people expect to see.

[marcc]

Thank you for that information. Hmm...are there any alternatives out there that might also work? Is there a way we could use Paypal for this? I just want to make sure I know how the board is laid out before I make my move.

[stevel]

PayPal doesn't generate gift certificates, and as the client has an existing merchant account, it seems silly to set up a separate PayPal account. Basically you need a system that will generate a unique certificate code and then provide some way to validate it. With osC, the certificate is redeemed on the web store and can be looked up in the admin panel. I suppose you could come up with a script that generates a random code and records it somewhere. The client would have to match up the code with verification that it was paid for.

[marcc]

Thanks, SteveL. I have decided to go the lo-fi route so I started a separate thread:

http://forum.powweb.com/showthread.php?t=59827

After reviewing the client's needs again, I think this method will work better (the one in the new thread) but I do need to figure out the SSL stuff.