Do I need Stripe connected?

Yes. An online buyer pays by card, so online sales need payments set up before anything can be bought.

Can I set what amounts people can buy?

Yes — a minimum and a maximum, both in Settings → Online sales. They stop a $2 card and a mistyped $5,000 one.

Is an online card different from one I sell at the desk?

No. Same card, same balance, same list. What differs is the recorded source, so your reports can tell you how much came from the website.

Does the recipient get an email?

The buyer provides the recipient's details at checkout and the card is issued against them, so it can be found by name at the desk afterwards.

Can I set an expiry on online cards?

In the United States, yes — the expiry window for online-bought cards is one of the online sales settings, and leaving it blank means they don't expire. Canadian salons don't see the setting at all: provincial law prohibits gift-card expiry, so cards never carry a date and the storefront never advertises one.

Sell gift cards from your website

Somebody wants to buy a gift card at eleven at night, three days before Christmas, from their phone. That's the entire argument for selling them online: the demand is real and it arrives when the salon is shut.

Turning it on

Gift cards are off in the online store until you switch them on.

Go to Settings → Online sales and enable gift cards. While you're there, set the two guard rails:

A minimum. Stops a $2 card that costs more to process than it's worth.
A maximum. Stops a mistyped $5,000 one, which is a refund and a very awkward phone call.

You can also set how long online-bought cards last — leave it blank and they don't expire. Canadian salons won't find this setting: gift cards can't expire in Canada, so there's nothing to configure and the storefront never prints a "valid for" line.

Payments have to be connected first — an online buyer pays by card, and there's nowhere for the money to go otherwise.

What the buyer does

They pick an amount within your range, enter who it's for and a message, pay, and the card exists.

The public gift card page on a salon's own storefront, offering preset amounts of $25, $50, $100 and $150 or a custom amount. — What the buyer sees. The preset amounts and the range come from your online sales settings.

The recipient's details go in at that point, which is what lets the card be found by name at the desk later. It's the same field you'd fill in yourself when selling one over the counter, filled in by the buyer instead.

One system, not two

This is the part worth being clear about, because it's the assumption people arrive with: a card bought on your website is not a different kind of card.

It has a number and a balance, it appears in the same Marketing → Gift cards list, it's redeemed at the till the same way, and it's searched the same way.

The gift card list in RewireBox, each row showing the card, who it was issued to, its balance and its status. — Online and till-sold cards land in the same list. There is one system here, not two.

What differs is the recorded source. That's how your reports can answer "how much of December came from the website" without you keeping a separate tally.

When it's worth doing

Online gift cards sell in bursts — the fortnight before Christmas, the week before Mother's Day — and barely at all in between.

That shape is the point. It's revenue you cannot capture any other way, from people who were never going to phone during opening hours, and it costs nothing to leave switched on for the rest of the year.