Gift messages are one of the most meaningful parts of the gifting experience — and Zest gives you full control over how they look, what they collect, and how they connect to your fulfillment system. This article walks you through every gift message setting available in your Zest partner dashboard so you can configure the experience your brand and customers need.
Before you start:
You'll need access to your Zest partner dashboard.
For brand-level settings, navigate to Settings > Checkout.
For per-storefront settings, navigate to your storefront's Advanced Settings.
Overview: Gift Message Fields and What They Control
Zest gift messages consist of two configurable fields:
Message — the main gift note text, the heart of the gift message experience.
From — the sender's name, shown alongside the message.
The Message field appears for all gift orders. The From field is configurable — you control whether it's shown and whether it's required.
Setting Character Limits
You control how long gift messages can be to match the real-world constraints of your fulfillment system. When setting this limit, take into consideration factors like packing slip size, card stock dimensions, or handwriting capacity.
How to set the character limit
Navigate to Settings > Checkout in your Zest partner dashboard.
Find the Gift note maximum characters field.
Enter your desired maximum character count.
Click Update.
The minimum allowed value is 40 characters. The default is 2,000 characters, which is intentionally permissive. Most brands set this much lower to match their fulfillment constraints — review this setting during onboarding.
Recommended gift note character allocations
Important: If your configuration pushes gift messages to a Shopify metafield, set your character limit to 250 or fewer characters. Shopify enforces its own metafield character limit, and messages that exceed it will cause the order to fail.
The right limit depends on your fulfillment system. Here are common starting points:
Fulfillment scenario | Suggested total | Example breakdown |
Printed packing slip, compact card | 275 characters | 25 (From) + 250 (message body) |
Handwritten note | 200 characters | 25 (From) + 175 (message body) |
Standard gift card | 300–350 characters | 50 (From) + 250–300 (message body) |
Tip: Ask your 3PL or warehouse team what their printing system supports — total character count, characters per line, and number of lines. Set your Zest limit to match.
Setting maximum lines
In addition to total characters, you can set a maximum number of lines for the gift message. This is useful if your fulfillment system has strict per-line constraints (for example, 5 lines on a 4×6 card).
Navigate to Settings > Checkout.
Enter a value in the Gift note maximum lines field.
Leave it blank for no line limit.
Configuring the To and From Fields
The From field
The From field collects the sender's name and is shown alongside the gift message. You control whether it's shown on physical gift notes.
To enable the From field for physical gifts:
Navigate to Settings > Checkout.
Toggle on Collect "from" field on all gifts.
Click Update.
When this is enabled, the From field is required — customers must fill it in before proceeding.
By default, the From field is not shown on physical gifts. It is always collected for digital (e-gift) orders. Enabling it for physical gifts is strongly recommended — the most common customer service complaint is gift recipients not knowing who sent the gift.
The To field
Where's the "To" field? Zest does not use a standalone "To" input. Instead, the recipient's name is automatically embedded in the gift message via template variables (such as {{name}}, {{first-name}}, {{last-name}}). This means every message is already personalized for each recipient — no separate field required.
How the From Field Behaves
Required vs. optional
Digital gifts (e-gifts): The From field is always required.
Physical gifts: The From field is shown and required only when you have enabled Collect "from" field on all gifts in Settings > Checkout. By default, it is not shown.
When customers sign within the message body
If your customers habitually sign their names within the message body (e.g., "Love, Sarah"), enabling a separate From field can create duplicate signatures. You have two options:
Disable the From field and let customers sign within the message body.
Keep the From field enabled and remove any in-message prompts that encourage signing.
If you disable the From field, some recipients may not know who sent the gift if the sender forgets to sign.
Custom help text for the From field
To guide customers, you can add:
From Field Copy (in Settings > Checkout) — brand-wide helper text below the From input.
Direct ship gift note help text (in your storefront's Advanced Settings) — per-storefront text shown in the gift message step. This replaces the default prompt ("Remember to sign your note so recipients know who it's from!").
Emoji and Special Character Settings
How emoji support works
Emoji handling in gift messages is not controlled by a dashboard toggle. Instead, it's managed at the order output level using Liquid template filters applied to what gets sent to Shopify:
strip_emoji— removes all emojis from a value before it's sent to Shopify.strip_non_ascii— removes all non-ASCII characters, including emojis and special foreign language characters.
If your fulfillment system cannot handle emojis (common for printed gift cards and 3PLs), contact Zest support to add the strip_emoji filter to your order output template. This ensures emojis entered by customers are stripped before the message reaches your printer or fulfillment system.
Emojis are always blocked on recipient name and address fields (first name, last name, company name). This is not configurable.
Warning: Emojis, foreign language characters, and backslashes can cause order failures when fulfillment printers cannot process them. If your 3PL has not confirmed emoji support, work with Zest support to configure strip_emoji as a precaution during onboarding.
Per-Recipient vs. Order-Level Gift Messages
Order-level messages
An order-level gift message applies the same message to all recipients in a batch.
Per-recipient messages
When individual gift notes are enabled, each recipient can receive a unique personalized message.
Dynamic personalization: Gifters can use variables like {{first-name}} and {{last-name}} within a single message template to automatically personalize for each recipient. For example: "Hi {{first-name}}, we hope you enjoy this gift!"
Best practice:
Add any order-level message before uploading individual CSV messages, or
Leave the order-level field blank if you want each recipient's individual message to apply.
How Gift Message Data Flows to Shopify and Fulfillment
Default behavior
By default, Zest sends gift message data to Shopify as follows:
Data | Shopify destination |
Gift message body | Shopify order note |
From field | Shopify order attribute — key: "Gift From" |
This works for most brands out of the box.
Customizing the output
Zest uses a Liquid template system to control exactly what gets pushed to Shopify. You can customize:
Order note format — e.g.,
To {{recipientName}}, {{message}} - From {{from}}Order attributes — add or remove key/value pairs
Metafields — push specific values to Shopify metafields
Tags — add custom tags to orders
Available Liquid variables include: message, from, recipientName, recipientEmail, customerEmail, customerName, customerCompany, scheduledDate, orderNumber, storefrontSlug, isEGift, shippingMethodName, and more.
Work with Zest during onboarding — or contact support — to match your fulfillment system's expected data format.
Shopify metafield limits
If your configuration pushes gift messages to Shopify metafields, ensure your character limit is set to 250 or fewer characters. Shopify enforces its own limit, and exceeding it will cause orders to fail. Always confirm your output configuration with your Zest onboarding contact.
Troubleshooting
Character limit set too high
If customers are submitting very long messages (1,000–2,000+ characters) that are impractical to print or handwrite, review your character limit during onboarding. The default is 2,000 characters — set it to match your actual fulfillment system's capacity.
Order-level message overrides individual CSV messages
If all recipients received the same message even though individual messages were uploaded in the CSV, an order-level message has been entered after CSV upload, overriding all per-recipient messages. Always enter the order-level message before uploading individual CSV messages — or leave the order-level field blank entirely.
Duplicate gift note fields (Shopify native + Zest)
If customers see two separate gift note fields — one from Shopify's native feature and one from Zest — remove the native Shopify gift note field when implementing Zest. Text entered in the Shopify-native field does not carry over to Zest's field, forcing customers to enter their message twice.