Within the Clutch platform, “stored value” is used by clients in a variety of ways including:
- Gift Cards – buying and selling of physical and virtual gift cards.
- Promo Cards or “Promotional Gifting” – these are often used as acquisition tools for brands who may want to issue “Free $5” Promo Cards.
- Merchandise Credit – used to give store credit to customers making returns, etc.
When you see a star badge next to a topic, this indicates it is a requirement for certification. For more information on card types and definitions, see this article.
Gift Cards
Purchasing and Redeeming Gift cards is an integral part of Point of Sale functionality. One of the key factors making the Clutch gift card experience best in class is that customers are able to both buy and redeem gift cards through all brand channels including in-store and online. To be clear, cards bought in store can be redeemed online and those purchased online can also be redeemed in store. Clutch is the database of record for these balances that ties the omni-channel experience together.
It is important to include the following functionality in your POS integration for Stored Value management. We also introduce considerations for your POS hardware.
Checking Card Balances
Check Card balance – call to Clutch for real-time balance information. Clutch will return all available balances on the card.
Selling Gift Cards
Sell a new physical gift card
- Allocate (activate) and Update Gift Card Balance only after payment for gift card has been collected/approved. This prevents the need to subsequently void issuance if payment is not completed.
- Ability to ingest card data via various hardware methods:
- Magnetic stripe – swipe card (which magnetic tracks should be encoded on card?).
- Barcode – Scan card.
- Key enter – keyboard functionality to manually enter card number.
- Tablet/Mobile camera scan.
Redeeming Gift Cards
Redeem card (tender payment via gift card)
- Use cases for consideration include:
- Redemption in full via gift card – no split tender required, card balance is exhausted.
- Partial redemption of gift card, full amount of sale is covered, but balance retained on card. Customer retains card for future use.
- Split tender required. Total purchase exceeds balance of gift card and additional payment form required. Check cannot be closed until additional payment accepted. Clutch will return NSF (insufficient funds) message in updateBalance response.
- Multiple gift cards used for a single purchase.
PIN Validation – why might this be needed at POS?
While it is somewhat unusual for a brand to enter a gift card pin during balance check or redemption at POS with card present, it is still a valid security feature to provide to your brands. Card PIN validation provides an extra measure of security against physical card counterfeiting. Clutch recommends all brands print physical cards with a PIN number protected by a scratch-off panel. It is also possible that eGift certificates that are issued for sale via eCommerce sites will be presented for redemption in addition to physical cards. These certificates should also provide a PIN number to be validated and are easier for a fraudster to reproduce than a physical card.
Other Gift Card Management Needs
Voids/Adjustments (Post void and during sale)
- You will need to consider the ability to void or adjust gift card value via Void or Adjust functions if a transaction includes the issuance and or redemption of a gift card and the sale is not completed.
- Example: customer buys merchandise and tenders gift card as partial payment. Second form of payment is declined and no alternative is available to complete the sale. Void should be performed to restore funds to gift card tendered.
- This functionality may be password/permission protected to prevent misuse and provide an extra layer of security.
Attaching Demographics to Gift cards
It may be important for a brand to attach and store demographics to a gift card in the Clutch platform. These can later be used for gift card escheatment purposes or researching lost/stolen cards. Clutch welcomes this data and encourages the ability to send the following information when activating a gift card. For Physical gift card sales, this would typically be the “purchaser” information, but some brands do request the intended recipient name and record that as well. Clutch does have a concept of Primary and Alternate demographic sets and more information on that is contained in our API documentation.
- First Name
- Last Name
- Email Address
Promo Cards or “Promotional Gifting”
Promotional Gifting
Promotional gifting is an important part of the retail marketing concept. One prime example is the ability to support a brand with a “Gift with Purchase” promotional card.
Example:
Spend $150 during the month of November and receive a promotional gift of $20 that expires in 90 days. There is a higher perceived value if this promotional gift is provided in the form of a plastic card.
A premier POS integration will allow the issuance of a “new” card for promotional reasons without the expectation of payment as a result. This could be done via a price adjustment which allows the issuance of a card for the price of $0.00 while still sending Clutch the proper amount to be issued. Password and role protection is advised for this functionality to provide protection against internal fraud.
Promotional cards should be clearly defined with distinct art and legal language that defines their status and any rules or expirations that may apply. Clutch strongly recommends using separate card as any issuance of a traditional “gift card” constitutes the responsibility to conform to any state or federal expiration or escheatment laws.
The redemption of a promotional card should be the same as any other stored value instrument.
Merchandise Credit – how is it different from gift cards?
With the exception of the restaurant world, most brands will regularly receive returns on their product. Clutch recommends issuing credit in the form of stored value whenever possible to help the brand keep the customer coming back to spend that credit.
This issuance will differ slightly from the issuance of a gift card in the POS flow. It will require that an option to tender refund to a merchandise credit card is available during return transaction flow. The calls to Clutch will be similar to those made for selling a gift card, but will also be flagged as “return related” in the updateBalance API call. The other main difference is that no payment is tendered for the issuance of a merchandise credit stored value card.
Clutch recommends that the brands have a separate physical card with a distinctively different art and legal language that defines its use and origin as return related to be issued when returns are tendered.
