PayPal Merchant - 2009 Gift Certificates Guide

Merchant Gift Certificates Guide

Last updated: October 2009

PayPal Merchant Gift Certificates Guide

Document Number: 100008.en_US-200910

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Contents

Chapter 1 PayPal Merchant Gift Certificates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Getting Started With Merchant Gift Certificates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Revision History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Chapter 2 Creating Gift Certificates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Gift Certificate Creation – Quick Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Customizing Your Buy Gift Certificate Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Selecting Gift Certificate Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Currency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Amount. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Shopping URL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Selecting Gift Certificate Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Color & Theme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Logo Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Preview Certificate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Selecting an Image for Your Buy Gift Certificate Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Choosing PayPal Button Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Using Your Own Button Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Security and Encryption for Buy Gift Certificate Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Editing Your HTML Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Minimum and Maximum Denominations for Buy Gift Certificate Buttons . . . . . . . . 13

Cancel and Return URLs for Buy Gift Certificate Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Branding the PayPal Payment Pages for Buy Gift Certificate Buttons . . . . . . . . . 14

Language Encoding for Buy Gift Certificate Buttons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 3 The Checkout Experience with Merchant Gift Certificates .17

The Checkout Experience When Purchasing Gift Certificates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Recipient Email Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

The Checkout Experience When Redeeming Gift Certificates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Accessing Your Website to Redeem a Gift Certificate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Gift Certificate Redemption Page Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

How Gift Certificate Redemption Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Merchant Gift Certificates Guide October 2009 3

Contents

Chapter 4 Gift Certificate Activity & Terms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Gift Certificate Activity Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Viewing Gift Certificate Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Gift Certificate Proceeds & Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Gift Certificate Terms and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

4 October 2009 Merchant Gift Certificates Guide

PayPal Merchant Gift Certificates let you sell personalized gift certificates on you website. As soon as you create and publish Buy Gift Certificate buttons, customers and visitors can begin purchasing and redeeming your gift certificates.

Merchant gift certificates can be redeemed only for merchandise or services that you sell online. eBay Gift Certificates are sold on eBay.com and can be redeemed only for auction items and merchandise sold on eBay.

N OTE: Gift certficates that you create and sell by using Merchant Gift Certificates are not

Overview

This guide contains the following chapters:

Chapter 2, “Creating Gift Certificates” – learn how to create and publish Buy Gift Certificate

buttons to sell personalized gift certificates for your website.

PayPal Merchant Gift Certificates

redeemable for your eBay listings.

Chapter 3, “The Checkout Experience with Merchant Gift Certificates” – learn about your

customers’ experience when they purchase and redeem your gift certificates.

Chapter 4, “Gift Certificate Activity & Terms” – learn about merchant gift certificate sales and

redemption activity in your account.

IMPORTANT: Please review the PayPal User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Terms and

Conditions if you plan to sell merchant gift certificates.

Getting Started With Merchant Gift Certificates

To begin offering merchant gift certificates from your website, you will need:

z A PayPal Premier or Business account

To sign up for a PayPal account, go to

If you have a personal account, click the Upgrade Account link on your Account Overview page.

z A website where you can copy and paste the HTML code for your Buy Gift Certificate

button

z About a half hour to create and publish the HTML code for your Buy Gift Certificate

button.

https://www.paypal.com and click the Sign Up link.

For more information, see Chapter 2, “Creating Gift Certificates.”

Merchant Gift Certificates Guide October 2009 5

PayPal Merchant Gift Certificates

Revision History

Revision history for PayPal Merchant Gift Certificates Guide.

TABLE 1.1 Revision History

Date Description

October 2009 Updated the list of supported currencies to include Brazialian Real, Malaysian

June 2007 Removed information about testing Buy Gift Certificate buttons in the PayPal

May 2007 Corrections to instructions for creating Buy Gift Certificate buttons with a tool

November 2007 Minor corrections.

August 2007 Updated procedure for creating Merchant Gift Certificates through the PaPal

Ringgit, Philippine Peso, Taiwan New Dollar, and Thai Baht. See

on page 9

Sandbox.

on the PayPal website. See

account profile. See Replaced logos and screen shots with new PayPal branding and navigation.

Chapter 2, “Creating Gift Certificates.”

“Gift Certificate Creation – Quick Setup” on page 7.

“Currency”

November 2006 Updated for current release

March 2006 Update for version 4.0.

6 October 2009 Merchant Gift Certificates Guide

Creating Gift Certificates

This chapter describes how to create Buy Gift Certificate buttons and HTML code for your website. This chapter begins with quick setup instructions for creating basic Buy Gift Certificate buttons and publishing them on your website. The remainder of this chapter describes various options for advanced Gift Certificate buttons, such as specifying colors, amounts, and images.

Gift Certificate Creation – Quick Setup

IMPORTANT: You must confirm the primary email address on your PayPal account before

you attempt this procedure.

To create and publish a basic Buy Gift Certificate button:

1. Log in to your PayPal account at

The My Account Overview page appears.

2. Click the Profile subtab.

The Profile Summary page opens.

3. In the Financial Information column, click Gifts and Discounts.

The Redemption Codes page opens.

4. Click the Create link.

The Merchant Gift Certificates page opens.

5. Enter the gift certificate details for your button.

– Currency – From the dropdown menu, select the currency in which you want your gift

certificate to be denominated. The dropdown menu automatically selects the currency of your primary balance.

– Amount – Select the Set Range radio button to let customers select from of a fixed range

of redemption values when they purchase gift certificates with the button that you are creating.

– or –

Select the Fixed radio button and enter the redemption value for gift certificates that customers purchase when they click the button that you are creating.

– Shopping URL – Enter enter the web address where your customers go to redeem their

gift certificates.

For more information, see “Selecting Gift Certificate Details” on page 9.

https://www.paypal.com.

Merchant Gift Certificates Guide October 2009 7

Creating Gift Certificates

Customizing Your Buy Gift Certificate Buttons

6. Create a style for your gift certificates.

– Color – Select this radio button, and select a color from the dropdown menu. PayPal

displays your gift certificates with the color that you selected as a background.

– Theme – Select this radio button, and select a theme from the dropdown menu. PayPal

displays your gift certificates with an etched background that corresponds to the theme you selected.

– Logo Image URL – Enter the URL for your own button image.

Click the Preview Certificate button at any time to view an example of how your gift certificates will look. Disable pop-up blocking software in your browser if the preview window does not open.

For more information, see “Selecting Gift Certificate Styles” on page 10.

7. Choose a button style for you button.

For more information, see “Selecting an Image for Your Buy Gift Certificate Button” on

page 12.

8. Choose whether you want to encrypt your HTML code.

For more information, see “Security and Encryption for Buy Gift Certificate Buttons” on

page 13.

9. Click Create Button Now to create the HTML code for your Buy Gift Certificate button.

The Add a Gift Certificate button to your website page opens.

10.Copy and paste the HTML code to your website. If you choose not to encrypt your button, HTML code will also be generated for use in emails.

To learn about advanced Buy Gift Certificate buttons, see “Customizing Your Buy Gift

Certificate Buttons” on page 8.

Customizing Your Buy Gift Certificate Buttons

The following topics show how to customize your Buy Gift Certificate buttons with special HTML variables in the HTML button code.

z “Selecting Gift Certificate Details” on page 9

z “Selecting Gift Certificate Styles” on page 10

z “Selecting an Image for Your Buy Gift Certificate Button” on page 12

z “Security and Encryption for Buy Gift Certificate Buttons” on page 13

z “Editing Your HTML Code” on page 13

8 October 2009 Merchant Gift Certificates Guide

+ 18 hidden pages