Creating Nice Gift Certificate for the Holidays?

[dreamec]

I read through this link:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/tips.gift-coupons.htm



In this description however, the buyer has to forward a code to the recipient anyways...so it doesn't seem to be any different than if they bought it and forwarded the download link.



Seems trivial for e-junkie to have the functionality to add a gift recipient email, but is that not possible?



Is there way to upload an image of our product and have it sent to the recipient with the code? Or at least a way to make it look nice? You know, like a gift for the holidays?

[E-junkie_Guru]

We only support plaintext thank-you emails to to avoid running afoul of spam filters and ensure the broadest possible compatibility with the wide variety of number of email systems and software out there. HTML-formatted email (which would be necessary to add an image) can arrive with unpredictable appearance depending on which systems and software it's gone through, and HTML formatting and image URLs also greatly increase the chances of an email message getting flagged as spam. That may be of little concern to mass email marketers if some people can't see the message properly or don't even receive it at all, but when the email is providing access to a paid purchase, you want to be as certain as possible everyone can receive and read it without any problems.



The major reason we only send thank-you emails to the actual buyer's email is because that is generally an email pre-associated with the buyer's payment account (e.g. PayPal Email), a known-good email address which is also known to be associated with the person who paid. Sending thank-you emails directly to any arbitrary email address is likely to cause misdelivery in case of typos or other human error. By sending the thank-you email to the actual buyer and suggesting they can forward it to a gift recipient, this ensures any mis-addressed emails would be bounced back to the buyer, so they can spot the error and try again.



We can add your suggestion to the wishlist for consideration as a possible new feature at some point in the future, but we'd need to figure out how to make sure gift emails won't just get sent to oblivion without the actual buyer realizing their mistake and having a chance to try again.

[dreamec]

Thanks for the prompt reply.



Is there any way to integrate it with the Wordpress Gift Certificate Plugin that works with Paypal?



http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-gift-cert/changelog/



If not, what if we created a thank you page that inserted the product image and code that could be forwarded? There's got to be a creative solution.

They could even print it out with the product and code or forward the url....

[E-junkie_Guru]

It seems like that WP plugin would work to issue gift certs to be redeemed in-person at your real-world shop, if you don't need the gift cert to be redeemable in your E-junkie cart. They only generate a scannable, visual QR code block to identify each cert, rather than an alphanumeric code that buyers could type into their cart (which you'd also need to set up as a Discount Code first). I presume the plugin's PayPal IPN support would need to verify the IPN with PayPal, so you'd probably want to bypass E-junkie and just use PayPal's own purchase buttons for that with manual IPN settings in your PayPal account (which E-junkie's buttons would override for orders placed through our system).



For selling gift coupons online to also be redeemed online, you might add some custom HTML in the gift coupon product's Message (HTML) field to mock up a certificate image within which the code could be displayed. E.g., you might use a 3-row/3-column table layout that displays slices of a certificate image in the edge/corner cells, with the actual code being issued displayed in the center cell using [%codes%]. Those edge/corner images would need to be served from a secure https: URL to avoid security warnings or non-display in the recipient's browser, so you could use our free SSLpic.com service to store those images at a secure URL.



If you'd like some help setting that up, we can recommend the competent, E-junkie-experienced developers listed in our directory here:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/developer-directory.htm

[dreamec]

Yeah, we want them to use e-junkie for download.



So you're saying a custom ssl page could display a url link to send a gift to a recipient that looks nice? Can you offer a touch more direction on what I'd need to know and if I can't do it, I'll use one of the developers you mention.



We're on wordpress.

[E-junkie_Guru]

You'd actually just be customizing your E-junkie-generated thank-you page for the gift coupon product, so it would display a mockup of a certificate image below the product name, with the actual coupon code inserted in the middle of that image.



The thank-you email sent for that product would include a link to reach the thank-you page for that purchase, where the certificate image/code could be viewed or printed. The buyer could simply print the page, optionally cut out the image, and give that to the gift recipient, or they could just forward their thank-you email or the link itself to the recipient, who could then click the link to view/print the certificate image.



The developer you contact should understand what I'm describing here, and they can always contact us if they need further clarification.

[dreamec]

So I just did the basic way since the holidays are already here. I guess a forwarded email will have to do.



My question is, in the template email to the customer do you have to put a special code for the gift code to display or do they get an email automatically?

[E-junkie_Monster]

Codes and other digital information should appear in a product email (but not the common email) automatically. If you want to disable the automatic message and control where the information appears you can do so with the variable tags listed here:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/help.custom.thankyou-email.htm



Note that the relevant tags for codes are product specific so they only work in a product email, they won't work if added to the general "common" thank you email that goes out on every order.