Selling Gift Cards with Harvie and Gift Up!

Harvie has implemented a third-party provider called Gift Up! to enable farms to offer gift cards to their members. Gift cards are a great way to boost sales around the holidays, and a tool to help your members get their friends and family hooked on your farm.

This feature is enabled by request only, and requires a unique configuration in the Harvie software. Please reach out to your account manager if you'd like to offer gift cards, and allow 2 weeks to ensure a successful setup. There are a few prerequisites:

• You must have "universal balance" enabled. This means that your members' Harvie Balance can be applied to any transaction in Harvie, not just swaps and extras. Unless you made alternate arrangements with your account manager, this was enabled on December 1, 2021. It will become the standard in May 2022.
• You need an offline invoicing account in Stripe. If you have been accepting offline payments from your members, this should already be configured. It enables your contracted Harvie fee to be collected monthly for any gift cards your members have redeemed in the preceding month.
• You will need to set up a Gift Up! account, and connect it to your payment processor of choice. Your account manager can assist you with this process, and we've provided some tips later in this document. When determining whether you'd like to offer gift cards, keep in mind that Gift Up! charges a 3.49% fee on the value of gift cards purchased. If it is legal in your region, you may add a service fee to your gift cards to cover this amount. More information is available in the "Gift Up! Configuration" section of this article.

So, how do Gift Cards work?

The implementation of gift cards in Harvie is intentionally straightforward. It can be thought of in the same way as a gift card you would buy for any retail store: a digital representation of cash already paid to your farm. As such, it is redeemable toward any transaction with your farm, and has no expiration date.

Any public user may purchase a gift card or be entered as the recipient; they are not required to have a Harvie account. Payment goes directly to the farm’s payment account at the time of purchase, less the applicable Gift Up! and any payment processor fees. Harvie fees are not deducted at this time, but will be billed monthly using the invoicing process already in place for farms accepting offline payments. You are only billed for gift cards that have been redeemed to a member's account.

To redeem a gift card, a person must be a member of the issuing farm. Existing members can redeem it on their Harvie Balance page, and new members can enter it at checkout for signup or new farm stand. Its full value is added to the member’s Harvie Balance at that time, and applied to all subsequent transactions until the initial amount is exhausted. The gift card's 8-digit identifier and its balance history will be visible to both members and admins on the Harvie Balance tab.

There is no limit to the number of gift cards a member may redeem to their account. The balance of each will be stored until it is needed to complete a transaction. When a member's Harvie Balance comprises multiple credits or gift cards, the application to transactions is prioritized first by expiration date, then by remaining balance. This ensures that members have an opportunity to use any credits or gift cards before they expire, and minimizes the number of active elements that must be maintained simultaneously.

Regarding using gift cards for special purposes:

• Gift cards are not a good substitute for most coupons. No restrictions can be placed on the purchase or redemption of a gift card in Harvie, so any promotions with date, share, or minimum value requirements should continue to be constructed as adjustments.
• It is not the best option as an incentive, thanks, or barter system. This can be done, individually on the Gift Up! site, or in bulk via a form and a Zapier integration. However, because Gift Up! still manages the data, their fee still applies. Specifically, up to a $50 gift card may be issued free of charge, up to 5 cards per month. Over $50 or after the 5th card, there is a charge to the farm of 1.99% of the value of the card. In most cases, credits are still the best option for these scenarios.
• A farm’s default gift card item should not be used as a season-specific credit, due to legal implications discussed later in this article.
  

Member interactions with Gift Cards

Once your account configuration is complete, several new pages and fields will appear to enable members to purchase gift cards and apply them to their accounts.

First up is the sales page, where the public can purchase gift cards. This is open to anyone, regardless of their membership status or whether they are currently logged in to their account. The Gift Up! purchasing widget appears here, with the settings you specify in your Gift Up! account.

There will be links to this page in several places

• Your farm profile page
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• Your farm signup page
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• Seasonally, a banner that appears across the top of most member and farm pages

The "redeem" button in the delivery email will take them to a new landing page, where they can choose whether they already have an account with your farm in Harvie. If so, they'll be taken to the Harvie Balance page in their account to enter the gift card. If not, they are redirected to your signup page, and can redeem the gift card as part of the checkout process.

• Existing members can simply enter their gift card code in the "redeem gift card" field on their Harvie Balance page. The gift card code will always be sent using all uppercase letters, but we've made sure that the software will handle it correctly regardless of the case they type it in. If they try to enter a gift card for the wrong farm, or outside of the valid date range, or that is otherwise not redeemable, they will receive an error message.
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• A redeem widget will appear in the Payment Options section of the signup page. Members will enter their code and click "redeem" to apply the gift card to their Harvie Balance, and the balance to their order, all in one step. They can then proceed through the rest of the checkout process as usual.
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• The same widget is also present on the checkout page for new Farm Stand (Shop), following the same process. As shown in this example, applying a gift card does not prevent a member from also using a coupon code, nor does it interfere with any automatic adjustments you may have configured, such as sales tax.
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Gift Up! Configuration

When setting up your Gift Up! account, we recommend that you step through each of the sections under their Settings menu. Recommendations for fields that specifically relate to the integration with the Harvie software are provided here. Gift Up! also has a robust Help feature, which can be accessed at any time using the "Get help" link in the sidebar. For further questions, contact your account manager.

• Business settings
  • It is important to check the box for "I do not have a website" so that a site ID can be retrieved to link your account correctly in Harvie.
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• Gift Card settings
  • It is recommended to make your farm name very obvious in the artwork, description, or both, to prevent people from trying to redeem their gift card for a different farm. The Harvie software will not allow such an attempt to succeed; this is mainly to prevent confusion for new members or folks looking to buy a gift for out-of-town friends and family.
  • The built-in Canva integration is a great way to generate artwork for your gift card, if you do not already have an image meeting the specifications. As an example, here is the current image used by Harvie Farms Pittsburgh.
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  • Terms and conditions:
    • If you choose to limit the validity dates of your gift cards, this should be clearly spelled out to potential purchasers in this field. Please read the federal consumer protection information below, as well as any documentation for your state or province, before setting expiration dates on gift cards. For example, in the US, it is illegal for a gift card to expire before 5 years from the date of issue unless it is specifically marketed as a promotion AND explicitly states the expiration date up front.
      • US Credit Card Act
      • Canada Consumer Protection Act
      • Keep in mind that the Harvie software does not support an expiration date on gift cards. Because they have already been paid for by the member, we feel it would be a negative experience to later prevent them from using those funds. Setting date limits in this section will prevent a member from applying a gift card to their account outside of that date range, but once they have successfully redeemed their card, its value will remain on their account indefinitely.

    • You also have the option to add a service fee to the purchase of gift cards, to cover the Gift Up! fee and those of your payment processor. Again, please read any applicable legal documentation for your region first, and be sure to clearly document any fees.

      • More about setting up service fees

  • Scannable barcode: This is NOT needed since we have no way of scanning it; it is useful for retailers with a POS or cash register system.
  • Issued date: check local laws, see above
  • Code generation format: The default in Gift Up! is a 5-character code. For added security, Harvie requires a custom code format of 8 characters, alphanumeric.
    
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  • Apple/Google Pay: If your payment processor supports these payment options, we suggest enabling this setting as a convenience for members.
• Email settings: This controls the content of the delivery email to the recipient, and the receipt email to the purchaser. There are two fields of note on this step:
  • The URL for the "Call to action" must follow a specific format, and will be provided to you by your account manager. This URL directs members to a landing page that will assist them in redeeming their gift card correctly, depending on whether or not they already have an account with your farm in Harvie. 
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  • If you choose, you may pay a one-time $70 fee to Gift Up! to remove their branding from your gift card materials. If you do not wish to pay the fee, the Gift Up! logo will appear at the bottom of the purchasing page and in all emails related to the gift card.
• Checkout settings
  • We recommend disabling Balance Checking. Because Harvie does not support partial redemption, it is not helpful in this context. The amount will be the purchase amount until they've redeemed it to a Harvie account, and $0 after that, because the full balance is transferred to Harvie immediately.
• Payment methods: Choose any of the listed integrations for which you have an account, or link your bank account directly. Please note that if your farm Stripe account is an "Express" account, integration is not supported at this time.
• Shipping: Email delivery is all that is necessary. You may choose to enable a "print" option for members who prefer to print the gift card and put it in a greeting card, rather than sending it via email.
• Locations: not needed
• Users: Create an account for any staff you want to have access to your Gift Up! data.
• Notifications: Set as needed for each user created in the previous step.
• Items for sale
  • We recommend sticking with just one item, at least until you are very comfortable with the Gift Up! system and its integration with Harvie. It is possible to create more than one item, for example if you choose to offer a specific denomination or a limited-time promotion.
  • We recommend allowing the customer to choose the amount of the gift card, for a simple and flexible gifting experience.
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• Test mode: use the switch in the sidebar on the left to enable test mode, so that you can run through the entire purchase and redemption flow, receive the emails, and make sure you like how everything looks. This will only impact your current browser session, not live users, so feel free to use this to check the result any time you make changes to your settings.
  • First, click the switch to turn on test mode
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  • Then, click the button to open a window where you can make a test purchase
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• Connect Gift Up! to our software: The Harvie engineering team needs two pieces of information from your Gift Up! account in order to link it to your Harvie profile: an API Key and a Site ID. Your account manager will contact you to retrieve this information.

Troubleshooting in Gift Up!

Until a gift card has been redeemed to a member’s account, the Harvie software has no knowledge of the gift card, and you will be responsible for troubleshooting it in your Gift Up! account. Here are some pointers for this process:

• Most of the information you will need can be found on the Orders page.
  • Here, you can search by all or part of the Code, Item, Balance, Purchaser, or Recipient. 
    • Partial values must be at least 3 characters. 
    • Dollar amounts must include the $ symbol.
  • You can also filter by Status (active, redeemed, payment failed, etc) or Delivery State (scheduled, sent, failed) using the dropdowns on the right.
  • Hover on the “Placed” date to see the exact timestamp
  • Hover on the “Delivery” value to see when it was sent, or when the purchaser scheduled it to be sent
  • Click “View” to see the full details, make changes, or re-send
    • View the gift card as it will appear in the recipient email
    • Click “show history” to see a complete timeline of the events within Gift Up! This view also offers an option to “undo redemption”. This option is designed for POS and manual checkout systems, and is NOT recommended for the Harvie implementation. It is important to note that this will NOT withdraw the gift card value from the member’s Harvie Balance.
    • Edit any of the fields (Email address typo? Sender forgot to include a message?)
    • Use the Email button to re-send the card or the receipt
    • Download and print an image, for insertion in a greeting card or a member's box.
    • The “Top Up” and “Redeem” functions are designed for POS and manual checkout systems, and are NOT recommended for your purposes.
    • Use the “Void” button to prevent an active gift card from being redeemed, for example, in the case of fraud or sending to an incorrect recipient.
    • Use the link under “Paid using” to issue a refund, if appropriate. In this case, you should also “Void” the gift card. This should ONLY be used if the gift card has not yet been redeemed, as it will NOT withdraw the gift card value from the member’s Harvie Balance.
    • “Delivery details” provides a timeline of events related to the recipient email.
  • Use the “Issue a new gift card” button in the top-right to issue a complimentary gift card. This should be used sparingly, because fees apply. Up to a $50 gift card may be issued free of charge, up to 5 cards per month. Over $50 or after the 5th card, there is a charge to the farm of 1.99% of the value of the card.
• Please see the Gift Up! Help page for additional questions, before reaching out to your account manager.