How to Sell Gift Cards on Shopify

Selling gift cards on Shopify starts in your admin under Products, where you can enable the default gift card product, set denominations, customize the design, and start taking orders within minutes. Every Shopify plan includes gift cards at no extra cost, making them one of the fastest products you can add to your store.

This guide walks through the full process: enabling gift cards, customizing denominations and visuals, choosing between digital and physical formats, marketing them effectively, and scaling operations when individual creation stops being practical.

Enabling Gift Cards in Shopify

Gift cards are available on every Shopify plan. To get started:

1. Go to Products in your Shopify admin.
2. Click Gift cards in the sidebar.
3. If you haven't sold gift cards before, Shopify creates a default gift card product automatically.

The default product comes with four denominations: $10, $25, $50, and $100. You can adjust these, add new ones, or remove any that don't fit your store. Each denomination is a variant of the gift card product, just like sizes on a t-shirt.

Once the product is active, customers can buy gift cards from your storefront like any other product. Shopify handles the code creation, sends the recipient an email with the code, and tracks the balance in your admin.

Digital vs Physical Gift Cards

Shopify supports both formats, and each serves a different purpose.

Digital Gift Cards

Digital cards are the default. The buyer purchases online, enters a recipient email, and Shopify sends the code electronically. There is no inventory to manage, no shipping cost, and no fulfillment delay.

Digital cards work best for:

• Online-only stores
• Last-minute gifts ("No time to ship? Send a gift card instantly.")
• Promotional campaigns where you need to distribute codes quickly
• Remote employee rewards and corporate gifting

Physical Gift Cards

If you sell in person through Shopify POS, physical gift cards add a tangible option. You can order branded plastic cards from third-party vendors, load them at the register, and hand them to customers.

Physical cards work best for:

• Retail stores with foot traffic
• Businesses where a physical card adds perceived value (salons, restaurants, boutiques)
• Gift displays near checkout counters

Most Shopify merchants start with digital gift cards and add physical ones later if their retail presence demands it.

Customizing Your Gift Card Product

A gift card is still a product page, and it deserves the same attention you give to your best sellers.

Denominations

Think about your average order value when setting denominations. If your typical order is $65, offer gift cards at $25, $50, $75, and $100. This gives buyers options that match how much a recipient would actually spend.

Avoid denominations that are too low for your product catalog. A $10 gift card for a store where the lowest-priced item is $35 creates friction at redemption.

Product Images

Replace Shopify's default gift card image with something branded. Use your store colors, logo, and a clean design that looks good in a customer's inbox. Many merchants create 2-3 seasonal variants (holiday, birthday, thank you) and rotate them throughout the year.

Product Description

Write the description for the buyer, not the recipient. Cover what happens after purchase: how the recipient gets the code, how they redeem it, and whether it expires. Address the two main objections buyers have: "Will it actually reach them?" and "How long is it good for?"

Selling Gift Cards Online

Your online store is where most gift card sales happen. A few adjustments improve visibility and conversion.

Placement

Add gift cards to your main navigation. A "Gift Cards" link in the header makes them easy to find year-round, not just during holidays. Consider adding a gift card callout on your homepage during peak gifting seasons.

Seasonal Promotions

Gift card sales spike during predictable periods:

• November/December: Holiday gifting accounts for the largest share of gift card purchases
• Mother's Day and Father's Day: The "I don't know what to get" fallback
• Valentine's Day: Especially for fashion, beauty, and experience-based stores
• Back to school: For stores selling supplies, clothing, or electronics

Plan your marketing calendar around these dates. Email campaigns, homepage banners, and social posts reminding customers that gift cards are available take minimal effort and drive real sales.

Buy-One-Get-One and Bonus Offers

"Buy a $50 gift card, get a bonus $10 card" promotions are effective because they feel generous without costing much. The bonus card brings the buyer (or the recipient) back for a second visit, and most people spend more than the bonus card's value when they return.

Selling Gift Cards in Store

If you use Shopify POS, gift cards work at the register too.

Customers can buy digital gift cards in person (Shopify emails the code to the recipient) or purchase physical cards that you load at the point of sale. Display physical gift cards near checkout, where impulse purchases happen.

Train your staff to suggest gift cards when a customer seems uncertain about a purchase. "Not sure about the size? A gift card lets them pick exactly what they want" is a natural upsell.

Pricing Strategy

Gift cards are one of the few products with built-in economics that favor the merchant.

The Overspend Effect

Research consistently shows that gift card recipients spend more than the card's value. A customer with a $50 gift card typically spends $60-$70, covering the card and then some. That incremental spend is pure revenue at your normal margins.

Breakage

Not every gift card gets redeemed. The industry average for unredeemed gift card value (called "breakage") sits around 10-19% depending on the source and card type. While you should never count on breakage as a business strategy, it does improve the economics of promotional gift card campaigns.

Gift Cards as a Cash Flow Tool

When someone buys a gift card, you receive the payment immediately. The recipient redeems it later, sometimes weeks or months down the road. This front-loaded cash flow can be meaningful during slow seasons.

Marketing Your Gift Cards

A gift card product that sits quietly in your catalog won't sell itself. Active promotion makes the difference.

Email Marketing

Send dedicated gift card emails before every major gifting holiday. Keep the message simple: "Still looking for the perfect gift? A [Store Name] gift card lets them choose exactly what they want." Include a direct link to the gift card product page.

Social Media

Gift cards photograph well when you've invested in branded visuals. Share them on Instagram and Facebook with seasonal messaging. User-generated content showing someone receiving or redeeming a gift card adds social proof.

On-Site Promotion

Add a gift card banner to your homepage during peak seasons. Include a "Gift Cards" link in your footer year-round. If you run a popup or slide-in for email capture, consider a gift card callout variation during November and December.

For more marketing tactics, our guide on gift card marketing strategies covers promotional campaigns, seasonal approaches, and measuring ROI.

Managing Gift Cards at Scale

Shopify's admin handles individual gift card creation well. But when your needs grow beyond a handful of cards, the one-at-a-time workflow becomes a bottleneck.

When Individual Creation Stops Working

Common scenarios where merchants hit the wall:

• Holiday promotions requiring 200+ cards created in advance
• Employee rewards programs issuing cards monthly or quarterly to a large team
• Corporate gifting orders where a client needs 500 cards for their staff
• Loyalty campaigns distributing gift cards to hundreds of repeat customers

In each case, creating cards one by one through the admin costs hours of repetitive work. And Shopify only shows you the full gift card code at the moment of creation, so there is no way to go back and collect codes later.

Bulk Creation Tools

Bulk creation tools solve both problems: speed and code capture. Instead of clicking through the admin for each card, you specify the quantity, value, and options, then create the entire batch at once. Every code is captured and stored for export or email delivery.

For merchants running holiday campaigns, this turns a full day of manual work into a few minutes. Corporate gifting clients get their orders fulfilled same-day instead of waiting while someone clicks through the admin hundreds of times.

Tracking and Reporting

As your gift card program grows, tracking matters. Know which batches were created for which purpose, monitor redemption rates, and export data for accounting. Batch-level organization keeps everything manageable even when you're working with thousands of cards.

Tracking Redemption and Measuring Success

Shopify's admin shows basic gift card data: current balance, original value, and associated orders. For individual cards, this is enough. For campaigns, you need a broader view.

Key Metrics to Watch

• Redemption rate: What percentage of issued cards get used? Promotional cards typically see 60-80% redemption.
• Average overspend: How much do recipients spend beyond the card value? Track this to understand the true ROI of gift card campaigns.
• Time to redemption: How quickly do recipients use their cards? Fast redemption means your campaign generated immediate revenue. Slow redemption may signal a distribution or communication problem.
• New customer acquisition: For promotional and gifting campaigns, how many recipients are first-time customers?

Using Data to Improve

If redemption rates are low, check your distribution method. Codes that sit in a spreadsheet get forgotten. Direct email delivery with a clear redemption link drives higher engagement.

If overspend is minimal, review your product catalog relative to the gift card values. A $25 gift card in a store where most items cost $24.99 won't create meaningful overspend.

Getting Started

Gift cards are one of the simplest products to add to your Shopify store, and one of the most versatile. Start by enabling the default gift card product, customizing your denominations, and promoting them during the next gifting holiday.

When your needs grow beyond what the Shopify admin can handle individually, BatchCard's bulk creation lets you create hundreds or thousands of cards at once, capture every code, and deliver them by email or CSV export. The free plan includes 25 cards per month. See how other merchants use bulk gift cards for employee rewards and holiday campaigns, or read the complete guide to bulk gift cards for a deeper look at batch operations.