Printable gift certificates

L

Larry Webb

I maintain a web site for a day spa and we offer gift certificates
through PayPal. The owner would now like to offer a printable
certificate. I can't see anything on PayPal about this, anyone have any
ideas.

Thanks
Larry
 
H

Hywel Jenkins

I maintain a web site for a day spa and we offer gift certificates
through PayPal. The owner would now like to offer a printable
certificate. I can't see anything on PayPal about this, anyone have any
ideas.

It's nothing to do with PayPal. You'll have to deal with the
certificates yourself, including some method of ensuring that the
customer can't print of multiple copies of the same certificate. If
there's just one location where they'll be used, that probably not too
difficult.
 
T

Toby Inkster

Hywel said:
It's nothing to do with PayPal. You'll have to deal with the
certificates yourself, including some method of ensuring that the
customer can't print of multiple copies of the same certificate.

Doesn't matter if they print off multiple copies of the certificate --
just need to make sure they can only redeem one copy!

Make sure that each certificate has a unique number on it, and includes
the name of the person who paid for the certificate. e.g.:

ACME Day Spa
Gift Certificate
£10.00
This is a gift from Joe Bloggs
Cerificate #1234

Record the amount, name and certificate number onto your database as it is
sold. Also on the database, make sure there is a boolean (TRUE/FALSE) flag
to record whether or not the certificate has been redeemed. When the
certificate is sold, set this flag to FALSE.

When someone comes in to redeem a certificate, the person at the spa logs
into an "admin" section of the website and types in the certificate
number. The website looks up that certificate and presents the spa worker
with the following information:

Certificate: #1234.
Buyer: Joe Bloggs.
Amount: £10.00.
This certificate has not been redeemed yet.

[Redeem]

("[Redeem]" is a button, which I'll come to in a minute.) The spa worker
checks that the information on screen matches up with the information on
the certificate. If it does, the spa worker hits the "Redeem" button,
which sets the redeemed flag on the database to TRUE.

If the information matches up, but the screen says that the certificate
has already been redeemed, then it's a duplicate, so should not be
accepted.

If the information does *not* match up, and the screen says that it's not
yet been redeemed, then the certificate is probably a forgery (not a
duplicate -- a forgery!), so should not be accepted.
 
J

JDS

ACME Day Spa
Gift Certificate
£10.00
This is a gift from Joe Bloggs
Cerificate #1234


Pounds? But I'm in the US. How is that advice going to help me?

sheesh...
 

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