Using our API for a custom integration
If you have your own platform you can use our Developer API to integrate your system with ours.
The typical use case involves accepting gift cards as payment/discount against an online order, subscription, service or booking. You can achieve that and lots more with our API.
How to accept our gift cards in your custom online checkout/system
To accept gift cards on your custom e-commerce checkout all you need to do is have an input field (or use the existing typical "enter your promo code here..." field) that asks for our 5 character alpha-numeric, unique gift card code.
The process to accept our gift card balances against an order/booking in your system etc... is usually as follows:
1. Ask us for the balance via our API
When you have that you will need to validate the gift card exists and determine the balance on it. To do that you call "Get a gift card by code".
2. Accept the balance in your system
We return a full JSON object defining 2 key parts of information, one is whether the gift card can be redeemed (true or false), the other is the remaining value on the gift card in your Gift Up! account's currency.
Process the order as you normally would, but discounted by an amount up to the gift card remaining balance amount.
3. Instruct us to redeem some money off the gift card via our API
Once you've accepted the order in your system you will want to tell us to redeem an amount off of the gift card so that the customer cannot use it again straight away. To do this you can call either "Redeem a gift card in full" or "Redeem a gift card" for partial or full redemption.
We have 2 ways to redeem an amount of a gift card which means that you can, if you choose, allow customers to use their balance over many transactions.
How to accept our gift cards against a subscription/customer account
You might have a different use in mind: one where you apply a gift card balance against an account your customers hold, or against a subscription/plan somewhere. This follows the basic steps above and can be accommodated easily.
Alternatives to using our API
If the idea or writing code to achieve an integration with us is not palatable, we have 2 other means to integrate with Gift Up!:
1) Use Zapier to program a code-less integration
Here's are some example of what you can do with Zapier workflows:
- Send an email to your staff when you sell a gift card
- Create a gift card and email it to the recipient when you get sent a specific email
- Send a text message to yourself when a gift card gets redeemed
- Subscribe purchasers to a mailing list somewhere
- Trigger a marketing workflow when you sell a gift card
You can achieve almost everything that our API can do, but without writing a single line of code.
2) Upload pre-provisioned codes for Gift Up! to sell
If you prefer to not use a developer integrate your platform with ours via our API (or are forced to due to other factors), you can upload codes to Gift Up! for set values (i.e. 10 codes for $100 each, 10 codes for $50 each, etc...), and we'll sell them for you. This approach assumes your app supports the ability to create discount codes in advance (or a similar mechanism) that somehow unlock the value issued.
Follow this guide: How to redeem gift cards in an unsupported system.