Gift cards / balance

-- HikaShop version -- : 2.6.1
-- Joomla version -- : 3.4.8
-- PHP version -- : 5.3.28
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : Chrome
-- Error-message(debug-mod must be tuned on) -- : N/A

I've tried reading up on the best way to handle this so I just figured I'd explain the situation before buying an addon ( HikaSerial )..

We have a client using Hikashop and they want to have a category where they can generate $100 gift vouchers for them each year to purchase office supplies from their corporate site. They want it to deduct from the balance so that they don't have to use the full $100 right away, so say they only spend $20.00 with that voucher then will still have $80 left to spend for the rest of the year.

1. Can this be done in any way with HikaShop alone?
2. Do I need HikaSerial?
3. Can a coupon have a running balance? ( that would be the best option! ).
4. Is there any option to offer a store credit?
5. Can this be made so that the customer cannot buy them? but that they are issued in the back-end by an Administrator instead?

HikaSerial seemed a bit complex to set up .. if that's my only option, can you guarantee that will do the job? and if so, can you give some step by step instructions based on my description?

It really would be like having an amazon gift card where I get $100 and I can spend it over a period of time on various things.. They may want to even limit it to a particular set of products/categories.

Thanks!

Jerome wrote: Hi,

1. The voucher generation when buying a product can't be done by HikaShop.
2. Yes ; the unique content generation is the main feature of HikaSerial.
3. No ; the best is to use "user points" for that. (it requires HikaShop essential or business)
4. CF point 3
5. Buy them what ?

HikaSerial might look complicated but it is not.
You need to configure a points generator, a pack and then associate the pack to the products which will give a voucher.
And we have a tutorial which explain the first step of the HikaSerial configuration :
www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/2...serial-tutorial.html

Regards,

Ok, thank you! one final question then..

We have the business version I believe, or whichever was the most expensive .. I can't recall at the moment.. but if user points will do it, do I still need HikaSerial? I know user points is a plugin... can we just give them points equivalent to a dollar amount?

I'm hesitant to just enable things since the site is live which is why I'm asking so many questions.. we didn't enable user points because we didn't want them earning points .. just given a certain amount via the admin per year manually

Thank you SO much for being patient, and it's useful.. even if not just for me but others who've been reading for this information..

I have one more wrench to throw into this ... the client only has GUEST checkout... so I think that eliminates the user points, this dawned on me as I enabled the plugin and was about to test it ... is that correct in assumption? I think it's fair to say it is not possible to use user points without users... ( duh me )

So HikaSerial, could it still handle this? ... I'm assuming it could... with a running balance? so the guest checks out with a code... uses 50% of the balance and can then come back and use the remaining 50% later?

Forgive me... I forgot about that one part which I know is critical

I talked out client into allowing registrations.. I did the following to test user points, which KIND of works..

1. I enabled the user points plugin
2. I created the user_points custom field for the backend and assigned myself 100 points with a rate of 1:1 USD
3. I enabled registration on checkout
4. I added a $9.00 item to my cart, free shipping
5. It did not provide me a payment option, it FORCED the points ( it used 10 points instead of 9 which is also not right )
6. I verified that the payment plugin for points is enabled with Partial Payment and Use Virtual Coupons also enabled.

How can I make it where they can choose the number of points they want to spend? .. I also only see one selection available under "Points Mode"

It seems we're close but it would be nice to make the points optional.. it may not be a big deal though.

Edit:

The 10 points being used thing, I realized is just because it accounted for tax and rounded the points up... I would rather it not do that, I think the round down option might be what I need to enable, I will toy with that.

Also another odd issue .. I have the "Give points when using some" option set to "Don't Give" and yet when I check out it says

Points Used: 10
Points Earned: 10

The balance stays at 100 .. why would that be?

Sorry for all of the messages.. but as I dig further into the user points system it seems either I've got it misconfigured or it's got a lot of bugs..


1. I can't restrict the points to a category.. the payment plugin has no option to do so.

2. I can restrict category for the user points plugin itself but I think that's just for "earning" .. i also cannot get earning to stop, it takes away the same number of points I earn so the balance remains 100

2. The restrictions option to not include taxes does not work ( using tax cloud ) .. we want all items in this category to be tax free

The idea is that they only want these points to be used on certain products.. I see no way of restricting it to products or categories that works.. any idea?