Store Credit is something worth having in your WooCommerce store to facilitate extended coupon functionality. Apparently, in this era where everything has turned digital, store credit can be thought of a better gifting option for your loved ones. In fact, you could also offer store credit as a refund for a returned order without actually having to bear the sale loss.

But however you choose to give store credits to customers, you want to be able to do it easily. Let’s walk through how a store credit can be  created and configured for your woocommerce store. 

Unfortunately, the inbuilt coupon setup in WooCommerce will not allow you to create a store credit. Therefore, we will need to have a coupon extension to provide this functionality.  WebToffee’s Smart coupon for WooCommerce can efficiently create and provide store credits for your store very easily.

Checkout the tutorial to know how store credit is used as gift card and as well as for refunds.

Configure Store Credit as a Gift 

Once the plugin is installed and activated, navigate to the WooCommerce > Coupons. To configure store credit for your store, move on to the store credit tab.You can use the setup to configure store credits with customers’ choice of denomination. These credits can be purchased by the customers for themselves or emailed as gifts to others in order to make multiple purchases.

Smart coupon for WooCommerce-Setup Store Credit

• The setup consists of the following fields:
  • • Extended Store Credit: The extended model allows your customers to choose a template from the available options. If enabled the customers will get to choose a gifting template from the available options on the product page. This template will also be used for email. The store credit product preview will be as shown below:
      

      Smart Coupon for Woocommerce-Store Credit Product Preview

      The store credit email preview will be as shown below:

      

      Smart Coupon for Woocommerce-Store Credit Email Preview

  • Manage tax: Enabling this option discounts the credit prior to calculating the tax. The tax will be calculated only on discounted value instead of actual value. For eg, if the order value is $110 and you apply a store credit of value $100, the tax will be applicable only on $10(order total after discount).
  • Purchase Store Credit
    • Associate a product: A zero priced product has to be selected from the available list.
    • Credit purchase options: Signifies purchase options for store credit. Predefined allows the admin to set specific amounts. Custom allows the customer to enter an amount of choice.
    • Set amount: Specify the predefined denomination values that must appear at the user end while purchasing store credit.
    • Minimum credit purchase: Enter a minimum value of the store credit that can be purchased using the associated product.
    • Maximum credit purchase: Enter the maximum value of the store credit that can be purchased using the associated product.
      While purchasing the store credit the minimum value and the maximum value by which the voucher can be purchased will be displayed at the front end of your store as seen in the preview.
  

  Smart Coupon for WooCommerce- Min and Max store credit purchase value

  • • Email store credit on order status: Purchased store credit will be emailed only for the selected order status as either completed or processed.
  • Store Credit coupon format: Specify the Prefix, Suffix and Coupon length in the field provided. The preview of the coupon format can be viewed from here.
    

    Smart coupon for WooCommerce-Coupon format

Purchasing Store Credit/Gift Card

Now that the store credit is configured, let us see how it’s been purchased by the customer. The store credit as a gift card will appear as shown below:

Smart Coupon for Woocommerce-Store Credit Product Preview

You can choose the required design from the available templates. There are predefined denominations and a custom field to specify the amount, this is because I’ve chosen custom and pre defined in the purchase options. I

On choosing the birthday template and $500 as the gift card, key in the email id to which the gift has to be sent along with the customised message. You can also specify the date on which the gift has to be sent.

Move the store credit to the cart and proceed with the payment as how a normal product is purchased. Soon after you will receive an order confirmation email.

Redeeming the Store Credit

The purchased gift card will be mailed to the receiver. On receipt he can purchase any goodies with the available amount from the store. The received mail will be as shown below:

Store Credit as Gift Card in email

The gift card receiver can purchase can redeem the store credit by purchasing some products from the store. He can use the code received via email to redeem them. The recipient can use this voucher for single or multiple purchases until the value is exhausted or expired. He can also buy products worth more than the store credit value and pay the difference at checkout.

The customer can view the store credit history from My Account > My Store Credit.

Smart Coupon for WooCommerce-My Store Credit Preview

Sending a Store Credit/Refund to a Customer

Navigate to the Email Credit section of store credit window panel. Email Store Credit helps in managing the refunds for the order returns of your store. Using email credit, the store owner can directly send the store credit voucher via email to specific clients deserving special discounts.

Smart Coupon-Store Credit-Email Credit

Email credit consists of:

• Email Address: Key in the email addresses of the recipients in this field to send store credits individually.
• Credit Amount: Enter the store credit amount in this field.
• Description: Optionally a message can be included while emailing the voucher to the customer. You will also get the preview of the mail here.
• Individual use only: Make the store credit voucher to not use in conjunction with other coupons by enabling the option.

Click on the preview to have a look into how the mail will appear. Once the above fields are filled in, click on send to mail the store credit vouchers to specified recipients. 

The customer will receive an email that has the store credit coupon code. He will just have to use the code as they would with any other coupon code to redeem it for refund.

Conclusion

Instead of struggling to find a workaround in your default coupon settings, make it easier for yourself to include advanced coupon functionalities using a coupon extension like Smart coupon for WooCommerce plugin. To know about the plugin, refer here.