Gift Card Product Sync

Learn how gift cards are downloaded from Shopify to HotWax Commerce.

Gift cards are stored-value cards that carry a value determined at the time of the card's purchase. They are often given as gifts or rewards and are redeemable for products up to the value stored on the card.

Gift cards in Shopify

Retailers set up both physical and digital gift cards in Shopify. Both physical and digital gift cards have a unique serial number or GC number that needs to be entered to redeem the card's value.

Physical gift cards

Physical gift cards are tangible cards that customers can buy online or in-store. These cards come with a unique serial number that customers can use to redeem the value stored in the card.

• Preparation and processing: These cards are assigned a unique serial number and a predefined value loaded onto them when they are processed and prepared for shipping.

• Activation: After processing, gift cards are activated in Shopify so that when customers receive their physical gift card, they can use the gift card serial number to redeem their purchase.

• Inventory management: Physical gift cards have actual stock-keeping units and require delivery to customers just like any other physical product. Often, retailers create different variants of a gift card with different denominations to provide customers with multiple options.

Digital gift cards

Digital gift cards, also known as e-gift cards, are virtual equivalents of physical gift cards. Customers receive them via email or text message along with a unique serial number that they can use to redeem the value stored in the card.

• Preparation and processing: Customers receive digital cards instantly upon purchase via email, and therefore, they are immediately fulfilled.

• Activation: Digital gift cards automatically activate in Shopify.

• Inventory management: Digital gift cards do not require physical inventory management because they are virtual products. Therefore, inventory tracking for digital gift cards is usually disabled on Shopify. This means they can be sold without quantity limits.

Download gift cards from Shopify to HotWax Commerce

HotWax downloads physical and digital gift cards from Shopify as part of the standard product download, which captures all gift card variants.

The product SKU serves as the primary identifier, which maps to the product ID in HotWax. Consequently, if multiple gift cards in Shopify share the same SKU, they associate with a common product ID in HotWax.

For example, consider a product named "Gift Card" in Shopify with three variants:

SKU	Product ID	Price
55000-000	1001	$100
55000-000	1002	$250
55000-000	1003	$500

Upon downloading this product "Gift Card" from Shopify, it maps in HotWax as follows:

SKU	Shopify Product ID	Shop ID	HC Product ID
55000-000	1001	NOTNAKED	HC2001
55000-000	1002	NOTNAKED	HC2001
55000-000	1003	NOTNAKED	HC2001