loading amounts on plastic gift cards not supported

[Jtrietsch]

I purchased plastic gift cards earlier in the year and loaded one with funds as a test. Now its time to push them for the Holidays I went into to load some and square says it is not supported anymore. It say's to use button to the left for gift cards. I click on it go to plastic and it just wants me to buy more cards. How can I sell what you sold me? 

[VanKalkerFarms]

https://squareup.com/dashboard/gift-cards/settings

you can set your default limits here and enable or disable custom amounts.

[Jtrietsch]

Right I finally found that under settings. My amounts was already saved from where I did it earlier in the year. I am trying to sell them now. I am not finding a place to load the card itself with one of those amounts. there is no place on my square app for a customer to purchase and tell me the amount they want. I want to be able to tell my customers that are on FB to go to my woocommerce store that syncs all my items with Square and have them start buying these cards. 

[VanKalkerFarms]

ok, that's two different things.

in the POS you can sell them by clicking on gift cards from your item library or if you added gift cards to your grid of favorites.  https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5432-use-your-square-gift-cards#sell-your-gift-cards-with-sq...

to sell online you can sell e-gift cards.  https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6000-square-egift-cards.  We also offer physical gift card sales thru our Squarespace site.  that isn't automatic as we have to load the gift card and then mail them, but some people want physical cards for gifts and stocking stuffers.  I'm not sure what integration there is with woo-commerce and selling physical gift cards.

[Jtrietsch]

Ok I am a little confused but starting to figure it out.  these physical gift cards I purchased can only be sold at the POS not through my website is that correct?  if so that really stinks. We tried the E-gift cards last year that was a nightmare. not one person could use them. I think that came down to they had to be used at POS also. I do farmer markets though the summer and my POS is only availible to people about 1 day a week through the summer. Most of my customers buy through the Woocommerce online store that syncs with My Square app. I would assume cumstomers could buy what ever $amount plastic gift card they want. I could activate it and mail it or deliver it. Then the person they give it to could go to my website and use it to purchase items. Is this possible or do I need to try and find ways around it or a different software. 

[VanKalkerFarms]

why do you say no one could use the e-gift cards?  what was the issue you were having?  you say about the POS only being available 1 day a week how are you accepting credit cards, or are you not?  any gift card or egift card will need to be redeemed thru Square POS.  all it takes is a phone to run Square POS to redeem the gift cards.

Also, I remembered that Square gift cards can be used on the free Square e-commerce websites, but not on 3rd party sites like woo-commerce.  So if the majority of your sales are thru your Woo site then Square gift cards might not be the right fit.

[Jtrietsch]

when I purchased square it recommended WooCommerce thats why I have it. Yes we take credit cards online on my website. its a wordpress site, with woocommerce that syncs to Square. I create my items in square, it syns to Woo. people go to my website and buy and pay with credit card using Square. I very seldom see my customers. this is a Farm not a store. we sell individual meat packages. Customers buy them we place them on their porch in a cooler on a delivery day. 

As for the E-gift cards. I gave up on them last year. I dont remember all the details but it was a mess. no one had a place to type in the E-card when ordering meat. It was kinda Embarrassing to post and sell something no one could use. 

[Jtrietsch]

Part 2 sorry. I just realized you said my customers can buy the cards from you and you mail them once you load the amount. That is exactly what I bought these cards for and when I bought them that was possible. I loaded a individual card with an amount and sent it to a customer as a test. It worked! now when I go it says not supported anymore. I just want what I purchased to be available. 

[VanKalkerFarms]

I'm not sure what error you are seeing when you say I go it says not supported anymore.  could you elaborate a bit, please?

[Jtrietsch]

we are no longer supporting the creation of gift cards items. you can still use and edit your existing items. I still have at least 100 of the gift cards I purchased. 

[VanKalkerFarms]

ah.  That is when they switched from gift cards being an item you set up to be a pre-made item for you to select and set up the variables in the settings linked before.  It doesn't mean gift cards are no longer supported.

[Jtrietsch]

But does it means I can not use what I paid for?  Like I said I done a test run when I first recieved them. It worked. now I can not use them the way I ordered them for

[VanKalkerFarms]

yes, you can use them. the links to use in Square POS were in a post a couple back.

[Jtrietsch]

That goes back to using them not how I intended. It does me no good to try and sell a gift card at the farmers market to a person that already buys with there credit card every Saturday Through the summer. I wanted my customers to purchase them online as I will only have online customers from now till April 2019 when markets start up again. Then when they get them they use them for Stocking stuffers of friends and family to bring me new business. By the way thanks for responding so fast and trying to help, I dont get many office days

[Jtrietsch]

By the way I see you farm. really nice set up. 

[VanKalkerFarms]

Thanks, It is a ton of work.  We still farm about 120 acres of vegetables all picked by hand, and we have over 4 acres of greenhouses for spring flowers and herbs and vegetables, in fact, over 50,000 plants are growing right now already for spring.   I also farm a couple hundred acres of Corn/soybeans.  Farm markets 3 days a week and a semi delivering wholesale every morning at 3 am to Chicago.