How To: Enable Customers to Create and Buy Gift Certificates

Important

Before you proceed, go to Add-ons → Manage add-ons and make sure the Gift Certificate add-on is installed and enabled.

The Gift Certificate add-on provides a special page where customers can create gift certificates, add them to cart, and buy them like any other product.

A gift certificate can include free products, a certain amount of money, or both.

If the link doesn’t exist in your store, you’ll be able to add it manually as described in this article.

Note

Enter example.com/index.php?dispatch=gift_certificates.add in the address bar of your browser to access the gift certificate creation page. Replace example.com with the domain name of your store. Customers can also use this URL.

Step 1. Create a Menu

1.1. Open the Administration panel of your store and go to Design → Menus.

1.2. Click the + button to add a new menu.

1.3. A pop-up will appear. Specify the menu’s name (for example, Gift Certificate) and set the status to Active, then click Create. You’ll be able to see the new menu on the list.

Add a menu that will house the link to the gift certificate creation page.

1.4. Let’s add a new item to the menu. Click the menu’s name and then click the + button on the page that opens.

1.5. Configure the menu item in the pop-up that will appear:

  • Enter the name of the menu item as it will appear on the storefront.
  • Enter gift_certificates.add in the URL field.
  • Specify any other settings you need, then click Create.
Add a menu item that links to the gift certificate creation page.

Step 2. Display the Menu in a Block

For your new menu to appear on the storefront, you need to put it into a block.

2.1. Open the Administration panel of your store and go to Design → Layouts.

2.2. Find the place where you want the menu to appear. For example, let’s put our menu on the Default layout in the Top Panel container.

2.3. Use the + button and click Add block to add the block of the menu to an existing grid.

Create a block in the place where you want the menu to appear.

Hint

You can also create a new grid for a block by using the + buttons of one of the 4 containers: Top Panel, Header, Content, and Footer.

2.4. A pop-up will appear. Switch to the Create New Block tab and click Menu.

Select the Menu block type for your new block.

2.5. On the new pop-up, configure the block by filling in the data on the following tabs:

  • General—specify the name of the block (for example, Gifts) and the type of the menu (Text links)
  • Content—select the menu to display in the block (Gift Certificate in our case)

2.6. Click Create. The new block should appear on the grid, and the menu should now be visible to customers.

2.7. You can also customize the look of your new menu. Click the gear button (Block options) of the newly-created block. Now you can select a wrapper and specify a CSS class for the block.

Note

In this example we used the top-quick-links class of the Responsive theme.

Use wrappers and user-defined CSS classes to change the look of the menu.

2.8. Congratulations! Now your customers can reach the gift certificate creation page by using the new menu.

The new menu block as it appears on the storefront.

Big CS-Cart Update is Here Experience the New Admin Panel with Dark Theme