TrendyGal

With the holidays approaching I have been brainstorming ways to easily sell gift certificates to my JAM Jewelry Shop Etsy store. Many methods I have come across involve selling a gift certificate in your shop (and paying an Etsy sellers fee), having the customer put a unique gift certificate code in the message to the seller when using the gift certificate (and paying another Esty sellers fee) and then sending a revised invoice for the amount the customer still owes and waiting for payment.  This not only takes a lot of time, but also requires that you pay 2 Etsy seller fees (one for the gift certificate and one for the actual item the gift certificate is being used on).

Instead, try adding a PayPal Gift Certificate Button to your Facebook Fan Page. Paypal will do all of the work for you including designing the Gift Certificate, mailing it to the customer and managing the gift certificate balances.

To see what the end result looks like (or to purchase a JAM Jewelry Shop Gift Certificate) click here:

http://www.facebook.com/craftychick101fans?v=app_4949752878

Steps for Selling Gift Certificates for your Etsy Shop through your Facebook Fan Page:

1. Log into your PayPal account and click the “Merchant Services” tab near the top of the screen.
2. Towards the center of the page you will see a section that says “Create Buttons” and underneath that a link that says “Gift Certificate”.  Click the “Gift Certificate” link.
3. Paypal will then give you step by step instructions on how to set up your gift certificate. Here is a helpful hint: You can customize your gift certificates to have your Etsy banner or logo on them to give them a more personal touch. Under the “Gift Certificate Style” section there is an option to “Add URL for logo image”. To do this, go to your Etsy shop and view your public shop. Right click on your banner and select “View Image”. The web address of this next page is what you want to add as you URL Logo Image in PayPal.
4. When you are done imputing all of your information, click the “create button” button at the bottom of the page. This will lead you to the link you will import into your Facebook Fan Page.
5. Go to your Facebook Fan page and on the administrative side under “Applications” click “Browse More”.
6. Search for “Static FBML” and click the first option that comes up.
7. On the left hand side click “Add to My Page”.
8. Follow the directions Facebook gives you from here. You can name the tab anything you like, I have named mine “Gift Certificates”. Enter the code you got from Paypal on this page as well as any text you want to include that your customers will see.

That’s all there is to it! Now you can easily sell gift certificates to your Etsy shop online.

I hope you found this useful! If you liked this Etsy selling tip please comment and share with your friends!