Gift wrapping lets your website customers mark items in their cart as gifts and write a gift message for each one. You set it up in BookRouter™ under Website › Marketing › Gift Wrapping: whether it is offered, what it costs, the words the cart uses and what you tell customers about your wrapping.
Turning gift wrapping on
Gift wrapping is off until you switch it on. Nothing changes on your website just because the page is there.
- Go to Website › Marketing › Gift Wrapping.
- In the Status card at the top, turn on Offer gift wrapping in the cart.
- Choose your pricing (below) and check the words.
- Click Save Settings.
The badge at the top reads Offered at checkout or Not offered, and the sentence under it sums up what customers get, for example how long a message may be and what the fee is. The badge changes as soon as you flip the switch, but nothing is live until you save.
While it is on, every item in the cart gets a link (“Make it a Gift” unless you change it). The link opens a small gift window where the customer answers yes or no and may type a gift message for that item.
Choosing the fee
The Pricing card has one choice:
- Complimentary: no charge. The gift window says so.
- One fee per order: charged once, however many items are wrapped.
- A fee for each item wrapped: charged for every item the customer marks as a gift.
For either fee, type the amount in the Fee box. It is in your website's own currency. If you pick a fee and leave it at 0.00, the page asks you to enter the fee or choose Complimentary.
Whether sales tax applies to the fee is a separate switch, “Tax on gift wrap”, under Settings › Selling Options › Checkout Options.
The words customers see
The Words card holds the cart's wording. Leave a field blank to use the standard wording.
- The link under each item in the cart: keep it short.
- Title of the gift window.
- The yes / no question, for example “Gift wrap this book?”. It holds up to 32 characters.
- Label over the message box: left blank, customers see “Optional Gift Message” in their own language.
- How long a gift message may be: from 60 to 1000 characters. A gift card holds about 250. The character counter under the message box follows this number.
If your website runs in more than one language, use the Translate link on this card to translate the words and your guidance.
What you tell customers: guidance and a photo
If gift wrapping is part of what makes your shop special, say so. The What you tell customers card puts a few sentences and a photo at the top of the gift window.
- Guidance: plain paragraphs, bold, italics, lists and links. Say what the wrapping looks like, whether the price is hidden, how the message is presented, or how to send the gift straight to the recipient.
- A photo of your wrapping: click Add a photo (or drop one on the tile), crop it, and save. Square works best; PNG, JPG, GIF or WebP up to 3 MB. It is shown small beside your guidance. The photo is saved at once, without Save Settings. Remove photo takes it off again.
The guidance and photo appear on websites using the modern theme. On a site with the earlier theme this card is greyed out: the gift window there shows only the question and the message box. Anything you enter is kept and appears when your site moves to the modern theme.
Previewing your changes
In the Preview card, click The cart and the gift window. Your website's cart opens in a new tab with the words as they read on the page right now, saved or not, and with gift wrapping shown as on. Add an item to your cart on the website first, then click the gift link under it.
The preview changes the words only, never what the cart charges. If your browser blocks pop-ups, the page gives you a link to open it instead.
What happens at checkout
- Cart page: once an item is marked, it shows as a gift with an Edit link. The Edit Cart window has the same yes / no for each item.
- Order summary and checkout: a Gift Wrap line with the fee.
On the earlier theme the fee shows beside the question and messages are limited to 250 characters; your own message label and message length apply on the modern theme.
Finding gift orders
A gift order is easy to spot on your side:
- Your order notification email carries a red Gift Order alert and the message under each item.
- The order page shows the message under each wrapped item and the fee.
- The packing slip and the receipt print “Gift message:” and the customer's words under each wrapped item (or “Gift wrapped, no message”), and the Order Items heading adds “gift order, 2 items to wrap”, so whoever packs the order can write the cards straight from the slip.
- The customer's order history lists the wrapped items and their messages.
See Managing orders for printing slips and receipts.
Common questions
Does gift wrapping change the shipping charge?
No. The wrapping fee is its own Gift Wrap line on the order; your shipping rates work exactly as before.
Can I charge different fees for different items?
No. There is one fee, charged either once per order or for each item wrapped. Choose Complimentary if you would rather not charge at all.
I changed my guidance and clicked Preview, but the gift window still shows the old text. Why?
The preview changes the words on the cart page, but the gift window itself shows your saved settings. Click Save Settings, then open the gift window again to see your new guidance, photo and message length.
Why is the What you tell customers card greyed out?
Your website runs the earlier theme, which does not show guidance or a photo. The switch, the pricing and the words still work. What you enter is kept for when your site moves to the modern theme.
Where do I find a customer's gift message?
On the order page, in your order notification email, and printed on the packing slip and the receipt under each wrapped item.