Gift Cards, Gift Messages and Gift Wrap on Shopify: Building a Better Gifting Experience

A surprising share of online orders are not for the person paying. Holidays, birthdays, weddings and thank-you gifts all turn shoppers into gift buyers, and they need different things from your store: a way to send a gift card, add a personal message, pick gift wrap, and make sure the recipient never sees the price. Shopify gifting features cover some of this out of the box, and the rest takes a few smart configuration choices or light custom work. This guide covers what is available, how to set it up, and where stores usually get it wrong.

Summer 2026 is a good moment to plan: features built in August are tested and stable before the holiday rush.

Shopify Gift Cards: The Built-In Options

Shopify has native digital gift cards. At the time of writing they are available on all current plans, but check Shopify's plan comparison page for your plan, since availability has changed over the years.

How native gift cards work

You create a gift card product in the admin with denominations (for example 25, 50, 100 and 200 dollars). When a customer buys one, Shopify generates a unique code and emails it. The code can be redeemed at checkout, and the balance carries over if not fully used. You can also issue gift cards manually from the admin, which is handy for customer service credits or giveaways.

Sending a gift card to a recipient

For years the main complaint was that the gift card email went to the buyer, who then had to forward it. Shopify has since added support for the buyer to enter a recipient's name, email, a message and, in many setups, a send date on the gift card product page. Whether you see these fields depends on your theme. Recent versions of Shopify's free themes support the recipient form, while older or heavily customized themes may need an update or a developer to add it. Test it by buying a gift card yourself and scheduling it for the next day.

Physical gift cards

Some shoppers prefer something to hand over. Stores usually sell a printed card as a normal product and attach the digital code manually or through an app, or use Shopify POS gift cards if they also sell in person (check hardware and plan requirements).

Gift card limits and custom amounts

Native gift cards use fixed denominations. If you want a "choose your own amount" option, you can add many variants (which gets clumsy) or use an app or a custom build. Also note that gift cards typically cannot be used to buy other gift cards, and there are rules and regional laws around expiry dates. Many regions restrict or ban expiry on gift cards, so check local requirements before setting one.

Gift Messages: Three Ways to Capture Them

A gift message is just text the buyer types that needs to reach your packing team (and ideally the printed note in the box). Shopify gives you three places to store it, and the choice matters.

Option 1: The order note

Most themes can show a cart note field that appears on the order in the admin. It is free and simple, but it is one note for the whole order, and shoppers often use it for delivery instructions instead, so your team ends up reading "leave at back door, happy birthday Mom" and guessing which part to print.

Option 2: Cart attributes

Cart attributes are custom fields attached to the whole order, such as "Gift message," "Recipient name" and "Is this a gift? Yes/No." They appear as separate labeled fields on the order, which makes them far easier to use for packing and printing. A developer adds them to the cart with a small amount of theme code, and you can make them conditional, so the message box appears only when the shopper ticks "This is a gift."

Option 3: Line item properties

Line item properties attach information to an individual product in the cart. Use them when a single order contains gifts for different people, or when the message belongs to a specific item (for example, a card that accompanies one bouquet). They are collected on the product page, before adding to cart.

Which should you use?

• One gift per order, simple needs: cart attributes.
• Multiple gifts per order, or personalized items: line item properties.
• Just testing demand: the order note is fine for a season.

Whatever you choose, set a character limit that matches your printed card size (often 150 to 250 characters), warn shoppers about emoji if your printer cannot render them, and show the message back to them in the cart so they can catch typos.

Gift Wrap as a Product

The cleanest way to sell gift wrap on Shopify is usually to create it as its own product.

How to set it up

1. Create a "Gift wrap" product with a price (or 0 if it is free) and a clear image.
2. Hide it from collections and search so it does not show up in normal browsing.
3. Offer it in the cart or on the product page with a checkbox or toggle that adds or removes it.
4. If you have several wrap styles, make them variants of the same product.
5. Decide whether it should track inventory. If you have limited premium boxes, tracking stock prevents overselling.

This gives you clean reporting, works with Shopify's tax and discount logic, and shows on packing slips as a line item your team cannot miss.

Per-item or per-order wrap?

If one wrap covers the whole order, a single cart toggle is enough. If shoppers can wrap specific items, you need to connect each wrap to the item it belongs to. A developer can link them with line item properties so the packing slip shows "Wrap: Item 2, red paper." Getting this right avoids the most common gifting complaint we hear from warehouse teams: wrapping the wrong thing.

Watch the edge cases

• Stop the wrap product from being bought on its own. A cart script can remove it if no other items are present.
• Exclude it from free shipping thresholds if you do not want wrap to push orders over the line (or include it on purpose; just decide).
• Make sure discount codes behave as intended. A "20 percent off everything" code probably should not also discount wrap, which is often priced near cost.

Hide Prices From the Recipient

When a gift ships directly to the recipient, the packing slip should not show prices. This is one of the most requested gifting features and one of the most often forgotten.

Editing the packing slip template

Shopify's packing slip is a Liquid template you can edit in the admin (look under shipping and delivery settings). A developer can add a simple condition: if the order has the "Is this a gift" attribute, hide prices and totals, and print the gift message in a nicely formatted box instead. Test with a real order before the busy season, because template changes apply to every slip.

Using an order printing app

If you want more control, widely used order printing apps offer templates for invoices, packing slips and gift receipts. They typically cost somewhere between free and about 20 dollars a month depending on features. Check the current pricing in the app listing.

Don't forget the shipping notifications

The recipient does not normally receive Shopify's order confirmation, but some shipping carriers and third-party tracking apps send notifications to the shipping address contact. If a buyer enters the recipient's email in the shipping address, the recipient might get an email that includes item details. Review which notifications go where, and consider asking gift buyers for a recipient phone number only for the carrier.

Corporate Gifting Orders

Corporate gifting is a different business from individual gifts. One buyer, many recipients, often with a deadline and an invoice. Stores that handle it well can land large, repeat orders each December.

The core problem

Shopify's standard checkout sends one order to one address. A company wanting to send 150 gift boxes to 150 employees does not want to check out 150 times.

Practical approaches

• Spreadsheet intake plus draft orders. The client sends a spreadsheet of names, addresses and messages. Your team (or a script) creates orders from it using Shopify's draft orders or the admin API, and sends one invoice. This works well for occasional large orders.
• Multi-address shipping apps. Some apps let a shopper split a cart across multiple addresses. Quality varies, so test carefully with your shipping rates and taxes.
• A custom corporate gifting page. For stores where corporate gifting is a real revenue line, a custom page where a client uploads a CSV, previews orders and pays one invoice saves hours per order. It typically takes 2 to 5 weeks to build depending on validation and payment requirements.
• B2B features. On plans that include Shopify's B2B tools (check the current plan comparison), you can give corporate clients company accounts, custom price lists and payment terms. On other plans, wholesale apps can offer similar terms.

Details that matter for corporate orders

Plan for address validation (bulk lists always contain bad addresses), a clear holiday delivery cutoff, a branded card per recipient, one consolidated invoice with a purchase order number, and per-recipient delivery reporting.

If you are handling more than a few corporate orders a year, a structured workflow is worth it. Our custom Shopify features projects frequently include exactly this kind of bulk order tool, and the connections to your fulfillment partner can be handled as part of broader Shopify integrations work.

Putting It Together: A Gift-Ready Store Checklist

Here is the checklist we use when preparing a store for gifting season:

1. Gift card product live, with a recipient form tested on mobile and desktop.
2. Gift card email template branded and reviewed.
3. "This is a gift" option in the cart, revealing a message field with a character limit.
4. Gift wrap product set up, hidden from browsing, with rules preventing it from being bought alone.
5. Packing slip template hides prices and prints the gift message when the gift option is selected.
6. Shipping notifications reviewed so the recipient does not receive price details.
7. A gift return policy stated clearly. Store credit for the recipient is the most common choice, since it keeps the surprise intact and the revenue in your store.
8. Holiday shipping cutoff dates displayed on product pages and in the cart.
9. A process, even a simple one, for corporate and bulk gift orders.
10. A test order run end to end: buy, wrap, message, print, pack and check the slip.

Most of this is a few days to two weeks of work for a developer, depending on how much is already in your theme. Simple setups (cart attributes, a gift wrap product and a packing slip edit) often land in the 500 to 2,000 dollar range in our experience, while bulk corporate ordering tools cost more.

FAQ

Can customers schedule a Shopify gift card to arrive on a specific date?

In many current setups, yes. Shopify supports a recipient form on gift card products with name, email, message and send date, but your theme needs to support it. Older themes may need an update or a small code change.

What is the best way to collect a gift message on Shopify?

For most stores, cart attributes. They create clearly labeled fields on the order, such as "Gift message," which your team can print on a card. Use line item properties instead if a single order often contains gifts for different people.

How do I stop prices from showing on a gift order's packing slip?

Edit Shopify's packing slip template so it hides prices when the order is marked as a gift, or use an order printing app with a gift receipt template. Test with a real order before your busy season.

Can Shopify handle one order shipped to many addresses?

Not natively in standard checkout. Stores use draft orders created from a spreadsheet, multi-address shipping apps, or a custom corporate gifting tool that turns one upload into many orders with a single invoice.

If you want help making your store gift-ready before the holidays, book a free 1-hour strategy call through our contact page.