How a café, bakery, salon or barbershop can sell digital gift cards without new hardware. A free item or a stored amount, balance deducted visit by visit, Apple Wallet, Google Wallet or print, with a full ledger.
For a neighborhood business, a gift card is a recommendation with money attached. One of your regulars pays today, and someone who has never been to your shop walks in next week to spend it. The paper version gets lost in a drawer. The digital version lives in the phone, next to boarding passes and bank cards, and it tells you exactly what’s left on it.
A loyalty card rewards the people who already come in. A gift card does something different: it brings in someone you don’t know yet, sent by someone who knows you well.
For an independent business, that means three things:
What held small shops back was the tooling: a book of paper vouchers nobody fills in properly, a printed voucher that can be photocopied, a balance scribbled on the back in pen, or a gift card module that only works with a point-of-sale system you don’t have.
This is the easiest gift card to give and to understand. You set up a short list of items (up to twenty-four), each with a name, a price and, if you have one, a photo. The photo’s background is removed for you, so the item sits cleanly on the card.
At the moment of sale, the item is frozen onto the card: name, photo and price are copied over. If you change your menu next month, the person who received "a matcha latte" still gets their matcha latte.
At the counter, the card is used once. You scan it, tap "Give", and it’s marked as used.
Ideas that work well:
This is the classic store credit for people who can’t decide. You choose the amounts on offer (up to eight, say $20, $30 and $50) and whether staff can also type a custom amount.
An amount card is deducted visit by visit. The customer orders $17.50, you scan the card, type 17.50, the screen shows the balance after the deduction, you confirm. The card in their phone updates itself, with a notification: "Balance updated: $32.50 left." They’ll be back for the rest.
Two safeguards are always on:
The preview next to the form shows exactly what the recipient will get, before you confirm.
Once it’s created, there are four ways to deliver it, depending on whether the recipient is there:
The recipient lands on a page in your name, "Leah sent you a gift.", with the message, the card, and the buttons to add it to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Nothing to install, no account to create.
When they come in, they show the card. You scan it with the same scanner you use for loyalty cards: the app recognizes a gift card and shows you what to do. "Give: matcha latte" for an item, the balance and the amount to deduct for a stored-value card. If the QR code won’t read, the eight-character code can be typed in by hand; it skips characters people mix up (0 and O, 1 and I) so it can be read out loud.
That’s where gift cards meet loyalty: on the same screen, a QR code invites the recipient to pick up your loyalty card too. They came in for a gift, they leave with your card in their phone.
Validity. You pick one duration for all your gift cards: 3, 6 or 12 months from the sale (6 by default). The end date is written on the card, on the recipient’s page and on the printed version. An expired card is refused at the scanner with a clear message.
Fraud. A gift card can only be read by the business that sold it: knowing another shop’s code gets you nothing. Codes are drawn at random from billions of combinations. An item card works once; an amount card never goes below zero.
The ledger. Every card keeps its history: the sale, then each visit with its date and amount. The list of cards sold shows each card’s status: unused, partly used, used, expired. At any time you know what you’ve sold and what you still owe.
| Paper voucher | Your POS’s gift card module | Wallet gift card | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | A voucher book | The matching POS | Your phone |
| Lost or copied | Yes | Often a plastic card | No: it’s in the phone |
| Balance tracking | Pen on the back | Yes | Yes, and the customer sees it |
| Sending it remotely | By mail | Rarely | WhatsApp, link or print |
| Grows your loyalty program | No | Rarely | Yes, at redemption |
Gift cards are included in the Growth plan, at $49 a month before tax (£35 in the UK, €40 in Europe), together with the loyalty card, automatic messages, birthdays and Google review requests. There’s no commission on sales: the money goes through your till, not through us. The 30-day free trial includes every Growth feature, gift cards too. Details on the pricing page.
Further reading:
A card that lives in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet (or on paper), with a QR code you scan at the counter. It carries either a free item or a balance, and it updates itself when you deduct from it.
No. You ring up the gift card on your usual till like any other sale, and create the card on your phone. When the recipient comes in, you scan it with the same phone.
Not yet: today, the sale happens at the counter. But the card can be sent remotely, by WhatsApp or link, to someone who isn’t in the shop.
Yes. Each visit deducts what was spent, and the card in the phone shows the new balance. It’s marked as used when the balance reaches zero.
The deduction is refused beyond the balance. Deduct what’s left on the card and take the difference at your till.
Guide
A gallery of digital loyalty card designs for coffee shops, bakeries, nail salons, barbershops and tea rooms. The three ways to count, the shapes, the collections, and the rules for a card people keep.
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