Gift Card API: Add Gift Cards to e-Stores Automatically
Tags: api, tutorial, webdev, ecommerce
Published: 2022-11-07 14:11:20

Loyalty programs and referral software are two pillars of customer attraction and retention. Therefore, as a loyalty and referral software provider in the eCommerce market or as a gift card software provider, you know how difficult it is for online retailers to manage their bonus programs without a special solution.

Your eCommerce B2B software for these programs helps online store owners create and manage their promotions and make them profitable. However, for your loyalty program and referral program solution or gift card software, it is important to [integrate with various shopping platforms](https://api2cart.com/use-cases/loyalty-program-software-integration/?utm_source=dev.to&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=giftcardapiv.k) such as Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, etc. It helps to provide its core functionality to e-retailers and automatically add gift cards to their e-stores. 

In this article, we will consider the process of eCommerce integration development and gift card API specific features.

## 5 main functions of the loyalty and referral program

Below are the main functions of any high-quality loyalty program software:

**- Set up rewards for your customers.**
The loyalty program software should be able to prepare individual awards for each customer in the store. Therefore, it should study consumer buying behavior, purchases, interactions and, most importantly, the eCommerce goal.

**- Accessibility on all the channels**
Because customers use any of the three options—a desktop computer, a mobile device, or a store for shopping, the loyalty program software can track their actions on each of these channels. In addition, customers will also have access to loyalty and referral programs through one of these channels, and the software must provide a perfect interaction with the user on all of them.

**- Connection with other systems**
Loyalty program software should be able to integrate with other systems so that retailers can get the most out of the software. Some important integration solutions include CRM, CMS, social networks, eCommerce platforms, etc. Through integration, the software can monitor consumer behavior through every outdated system in the company.

**- Providing deep analysis and reports**
Analytics is an essential aspect of loyalty and referral programs. It should give an idea of the reaction of clients to different loyalty programs and referral programs offered by e-retailers. In addition, the software should also examine the web activity of visitors/clients, so that retailers understand which types of loyalty programs will be profitable and most acceptable to customers.

**- Automatic addition of gift cards to the store**
Another important feature of the loyalty program software is the automatic addition of gift cards to e-shops. It means that the software must be able to retrieve information from online stores about their customers, orders, and everything between them to prepare gift cards and add them to the store. It requires the use of the gift card [API](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API).

## Significance of eCommerce integration for loyalty program software
As mentioned earlier, eCommerce loyalty and referral software providers must integrate their solutions with eCommerce platforms to access [online store data](https://api2cart.com/api-technology/api-data-integration/?utm_source=dev.to&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=giftcardapiv.k). Data related to customers, orders, products, interactions, and behavior will allow software to perform all previously mentioned functions for online store owners.

In addition, to add gift cards to online stores, software providers will need a gift card API to connect to eCommerce platforms and retrieve store data. Not only to add gift cards, but also to all the functions of the loyalty program software you need information about clients, their orders, how they spent time in e-stores, the history of their purchases, etc. The software uses this information to:

- create individual loyalty awards for customers of e-store
- help merchants gain insights into clients' sympathy and antipathy and accordingly to develop their loyalty programs for the future
- make retailers gain more customers and keep them

In addition, with the help of the gift cards API, the software can add coupons and gift cards to the store, provide the correct promotions in online stores for their customers, run and effectively manage referral programs, and create detailed reports for e-customers of the store to analyze the effectiveness of their loyalty and referral programs.

To perform all functions and seamless integration, you need a [unified API](https://api2cart.com/?utm_source=dev.to&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=giftcardapiv.k) that can connect loyalty software to multiple eCommerce platforms at once. With its features and functionality, you can take advantage of the many benefits of integration without spending time, money, and resources on integration itself.

## The Process of Adding Gift Cards to e-Stores
The third-party solution functions as an integration intermediary between your loyalty program software and eCommerce platforms. When you connect to such a solution, it can integrate your software into more than 40 eCommerce platforms of your choice and retrieve and manage data from them.

[API methods](https://docs.api2cart.com/?utm_source=dev.to&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=giftcardapiv.k) allow you to modify and work with order data, products, e-shop clients, etc.

With this help, the loyalty program can easily add gift cards to the store automatically. To work with gift cards, it is necessary to use the following API methods:

- [cart.giftcard.list](https://docs.api2cart.com/post/interactive-docs?version=v1.1&cart_id=all#/cart/CartGiftcardList?utm_source=dev.to&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=giftcardapiv.k) - this method allows you to get a list of gift cards in the shop. Its structure of the response may look like this:

```
{
  "return_code": int,
  "return_message": string,
  "gift_card": [
     {
        "id": string,
        "code": string,
        "name": string,
        "currency_code": string,
        "amount": decimal,
        "initial_amount": decimal,
        "status": string,
        "created_at": string,
        "avail_to": string,
        "free_product_ids": string,
        "message": string,
        "owner_email": string,
        "recipient_email": string,
        "owner_name": string,
        "recipient_name": string,
        "usage_history":[ array
          {
            "order_id": string,
            "amount": decimal
          },
          ...
        ]
     },
     ...
  ]

```
- [cart.giftcard.add](https://docs.api2cart.com/post/interactive-docs?version=v1.1&cart_id=all#/cart/CartGiftcardAdd?utm_source=dev.to&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=giftcardapiv.k) - this method allows you to add gift cards to the store

## Conclusion
Regardless of how advanced and functional your loyalty program software is, without integration with eСommerce platforms, it will not be able to provide its basic functionality to e-sellers. As a result, they will move to your competitors because they already take advantage of several integrations. Therefore, it is better to understand its importance in advance and use the Gift Card API to make it easier to add gift cards to e-shops. Or you can [contact us](https://api2cart.com/contact-us/?utm_source=dev.to&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=giftcardapiv.k) to learn more about how iPaaS solution can help you with eCommerce integration and automatically add gift cards to your customers' online stores.