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Managing Physical Gift Card Inventory

This guide covers the day-to-day workflow for retailers who sell printed gift cards. For every setting mentioned here, see Physical Gift Cards.

The physical gift card lifecycle

Get printed cards and their codes
         ↓
Upload the codes to GiftCard Hero (or import them with balances)
         ↓
Customer buys a card online or at the register → the card gets its balance
         ↓
Customer spends the card at checkout or POS
         ↓
Balance reaches zero → card fully redeemed

Step 1 — Decide when cards get their value

This decision shapes everything else.

  • Activate on sale (recommended for most stores). Cards have no value until they are sold. A stolen unsold card is worthless, and the balance always equals what the customer paid.
  • Pre-loaded. Cards already hold a balance when they reach the store. Use this only when you have to, for example when moving cards from a previous system. Treat pre-loaded stock like cash.

Step 2 — Get the cards and their codes

  • Order cards from Shopify Customizable Gift Cards, or
  • Generate codes in GiftCard Hero (Bulk actions → Generate → Generate without import) and send the CSV to your printing company.

If your supplier offers to load balances onto the cards, decline it when you activate on sale: GiftCard Hero loads the balance when each card is sold.

When the cards arrive, check that the number of codes matches the number of cards.

Step 3 — Load the codes

Activate on sale: go to eGift/Physical cards → Physical gift cards → Gift codes → Upload codes. If you sell several physical gift card products (for example one per design or value), choose the product the codes belong to and upload each batch separately.

Pre-loaded: go to Bulk actions → Import from file and upload a CSV with the code and initial_value for each card.

Step 4 — Sell cards

  • Online: turn on Auto assignment. Each order with a physical gift card takes an unused code from the pool and loads the amount paid. The code appears on the order page, so the packer knows which card to ship.
  • At the register: in the GiftCard Hero tile in Shopify POS, staff tap Register Gift Card, scan or type the card's code and enter its value. The card is active immediately. Registering creates the card without taking payment, so staff make sure the card's value has been paid.
  • Picking a specific card for an order: register it from the order page with the Gift Card Hero Admin block.

Step 5 — Reconcile stock

The Uploaded gift codes list counts Assigned, Unused and With errors codes. Once a month:

  1. Count the unsold cards you hold
  2. Compare the count with Unused codes for that product
  3. Look into any gap, and fix or delete codes listed With errors

Balances and transactions of sold cards are in Shopify admin → Gift cards: every card is a regular Shopify gift card.

Loss prevention

  • Prefer activate on sale, so unsold stock has no value
  • Keep card stock behind the counter
  • If an unsold card goes missing, delete its code from Uploaded gift codes so it can't be assigned to an order
  • If a sold card is reported lost or stolen, deactivate it in Shopify admin → Gift cards