We are harder than anyone on our product, and it's bothered us for a while that we didn't have a nice robust feature that allowed our customers to take gift certificates. So I'm thrilled to announce that starting today, gift certificate functionality is available in Tula, and is ready for use today!
Like we always do, we think long and hard about the user experience of everyone involved, and with the introduction of gift certificates we pushed our payment system even harder to create the optimal experience for everyone involved. This means for the person buying the gift, for the recipient, and for the studio owner we needed to make the system perfect for everyone involved.
The result is an implementation that is as simple to use as it was complex to build. Here's how it works:
Enable Gift Certificates
The online store settings have been modified to allow you to choose which of your passes should be available as gifts. Simply choose the passes you want available as gift options, and then save your settings. That's it, that's all you need to do to start accepting gift certificates!
Payment form automatically updates
Once you choose one or more passes to be available as a gift certificate, your payment form will automatically update so that people can choose to indicate a purchase is intended to be a gift. Upon choosing this option, the list of passes is filtered, and the input fields are updated so that they can enter information about the recipient. As always, it's worth pointing out that with our payment form, people can make purchases from you without first creating an account with us. With gift certificates, this distinction is more important than ever.
Match the payment
Once a purchase is made via the online form, match the payment to the buyer of the gift certificate. This is no different than how normal purchases work now. (note, you can also record the purchases of gift certificates from within the app.)
Unique Gift Certificate Code Created
Once the purchase of a gift certificate is made, the person is charged for the gift certificate, and a unique gift certificate code is created. This purchase is noted in the purchasers profile as a purchase, and we indicate that it was a gift purchase.
Redemption
Redeeming a gift certificate is simply the recording of a purchase, but you choose 'Redeem Gift Certificate' as the payment method, which is a new payment option. Upon choosing this payment option, you enter in the code, and this code will only work for the pass type it was intended for. Once the purchase is complete, we indicate this as well on the student's profile page.
Easy, fast and ready to go now!
We're so happy that we can help our customers give the gift of yoga this year, and with the latest updates to our iPhone app, it's easier than ever to match these incoming purchases on your phone.