Requires a Shopify Plus Account for account access to the Shopify gift card API
Overview
Mortar integrates gift card balances and statuses between Shopify Plus and your POS. Whether you're selling gift cards on Shopify or in-store, Mortar ensures gift card balances are synced between platforms to enhance your customer's shopping experience by enabling gift card redemption anywhere.
The three types of gift cards
Normally, there are in-store and Shopify gift cards; each can only be redeemed in the same channel where they were purchased.
Gift card | Customer use |
In-store gift cards | Redeem in-store only |
Shopify gift cards | Redeem on Shopify only |
Unified gift cards | Redeem both on Shopify and in-store |
Unified gift cards are the dream. Giving customers the ability to redeem a gift card wherever the retailer sells.
Unified gift cards not currently supported for Lightspeed (X-Series)
Lightspeed (X-Series) does not currently support gift cards as a payment when creating sales. Unified gift card support is available for merchants using Lightspeed (R-Series) and Heartland Retail.
Gift card setup
Unifying existing gift cards with Shopify
When unified gift card support is first activated, Mortar Support will assist with syncing existing gift cards. Historical gift cards will first be downloaded from Shopify Plus to your POS. Once complete, historical in-store gift cards will be uploaded from your POS to Shopify Plus.
Note: Shopify requires gift card serial numbers to have 8 or more digits. Please contact Mortar Support if your historical POS gift cards contain fewer than 8 digits.
Selling new gift cards
Shopify hides all gift card serial numbers in Shopify, even from integrations. So, when a customer purchases a Shopify gift card, only the customer can know a gift card's serial number.
There are two workflows for selling new gift cards. In both cases, Mortar functions the same, and gift card balances are synced between systems whenever the gift cards are redeemed. You may use one or both of the following workflows to meet your customers' needs.
1. In-store gift card - RECOMMENDED
The recommended workflow is to set up a product in Shopify for gift cards that is a regular product, not an actual gift card. This allows the gift card number to be the same between platforms. The product should have multiple variants in price denominations ($25, $50, $100, $250, etc).
Step-by-step
When this gift card product is purchased on Shopify:
Staff refunds the gift card line item in POS to an in-store gift card payment using a valid in-store gift card number.
Staff assigns the refund to the gift card recipient if known.
The gift card is created automatically in Shopify, and the number is emailed to the recipient. You can also ship the physical in-store gift card if desired.
The gift card number will work in-store AND on Shopify, no in-store lookup is required.
2. Shopify gift card - lookup required
A customer purchases a gift card on Shopify and receives a Shopify gift card immediately via email for use on Shopify.
Because Shopify hides all gift card serial numbers in Shopify, even from integrations, this workflow requires staff to manually look up the gift card in the POS to redeem the gift card in-store.
All gift cards are associated to Customers in POS. To redeem gift cards in this workflow, staff must lookup the customer's name in the POS to identify the gift card number to redeem.
Selling in-store gift cards is simple
Regardless of which workflow you choose, when an in-store gift card is sold, a corresponding gift card is automatically created on Shopify Plus with a matching serial number and the customer is emailed the gift card number.
Redeeming unified gift cards
For customers, the process of using gift cards is simple.
Redeeming gift cards on Shopify
If you issued a customer a physical in-store gift card number, the customer enters the gift card number from the card or the email you sent them with their gift card number.
If you had Shopify provide an instant Shopify gift card the customer will use the gift card number they were provided via Shopify.
Redeeming gift cards In-store
If you issue a physical gift card for a Shopify gift card purchase (Workflow #1), there is nothing to look up. Use the physical card just as you would any other in-store gift card.
If you use Shopify to create an instant digital gift card, when a customer uses their gift card in-store, follow the instructions below to look up the POS-compatible gift card number for your POS:
Learn more: Looking up gift cards in Lightspeed Retail (R-Series)
Learn more: Looking up gift cards in Heartland Retail
Troubleshooting
The most typical troubles associated with gift cards are:
A zero balance gift card is generally because the funding sale is blocked from being created in the POS
Can't find a Shopify gift card serial number in your POS
Additional links