Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

[lesliekirk]

Does anyone have any solutions for being able to use an online generated gift certificate in a brick & mortar store and vice versa? I'm thinking this is going to be almost impossible unless the brick & mortar store has some sort of POS system that ties into Miva Merchant.

FYI, just asking, there is no huge budget to try and do anything custom here.

[K Series Parts]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

we offer both email and physical gift cards in our store. when someone gets a physical gift card we just use a label maker to print out the code that the store generates and mail it to them. Not the best approach but it works. I don't think there is anyway to tie the two together without some type of custom payment and gift card module that somehow processes both.

[lesliekirk]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

Handling the purchase of gift certificate in the brick & mortar store to be used in the online store really isn't an issue. It would be someone coming into the brick & mortar store wanting to use online gift certificate that has a balance.

[mediumwell]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

We've been struggling with this same issue for a while. It seems that the only solution would be to have a third party manage the account balance. Visa has a Gift Card that works like a Credit card, and Visa manages the balance, but I wonder if there's a way to limit it's use to only a particular online store and/or brick and mortar.

Technically, the Visa Gift card can be used anywhere they take Visa.

Matt

[K Series Parts]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

the problem with a visa gc is you have to turn off address authorization on them so it is an extra step.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

The simple solution, especially since the numbers are going to be low, is to have the store clerk enter the debit to the online certificate...well, online. Meaning that they would have to have access to the Merchant backend...which they would need anyway to see if there was indeed a balance to begin with.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

I am keenly interested in how popular this feature would be. I've been talking to CHASE Paymentech about it and they have a solution that allows for this to work essentially identical to the "big guys" like Target, etc...

Before you answer, let me tell you the requirements to make this work and the real question I have is would people go through all of this to have this feature:

1. They would need to have both their brick and mortar and online merchant account(s) through Chase Paymentech. It could all be one account, but it would need to connect via the Orbital Gateway (which is version 5.x only) to Chase Paymentech for their Miva Merchant store and also have their swipe terminal in their store connected to Chase Paymentech.

2. They would need to buy the gift cards via Chase Paymentech, I believe they are about $15 per 100 cards.

3. When someone buys a card online or in the store they would get an "account". The Merchant would then swipe a card to fill it with that customers balance and if it was online mail them the card.

If they were to do all 3 items above they could provide gift cards that worked like credit cards in both the store and online. Also it's worth noting they do NOT charge a transaction fee on the giftcards so at $.15 or so a card it's cheap compared to credit cards.

[mediumwell]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

Would an online purchaser get an immediate card number they could use to purchase online, or would they have to wait for the physical card? Similarly, could they just say the card number at the brick or mortar or would they have to swipe it?

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

I believe they would get an instant "code" kind of like at Amazon for use online. I believe you can also use the code in the store but I'm not 100% sure of that.

[yovation]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

Hi Rick,

I don't see the Chase Paymentech, Orbital Gateway in my MM5.x store. Is that available yet?

Thank you.
Yovation

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

It's available from us directly.

[crozon]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

I would be interested but I don't think Chase works for merchants using a Canadian depositing bank.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

Chase Paymentech is in Canada too, I'll find out if this works the same in all of their markets.

[crozon]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

and if I remember correctly Chase was one of the companies that will be integrating with Wombat to do refunds correct?

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Gift Certificates for MM and Brick & Mortar Store

Yes CHASE is the company we'll likely have the deepest integrations with going forward as they offer more features than just about anyone and are pretty much the only payment processing company who doesn't feel like a used car salesman.