E-gifts in Concierge let your team send gifts on behalf of a customer without needing their recipients' shipping addresses. You create the project, add recipients by email address or phone number, and each recipient enters their own shipping address when they accept their gift. You manage everything from your Zest dashboard, with no engineering required.
Before you start:
Your Zest account has Concierge enabled.
The products you want to send have a shipping profile with an e-gift shipping zone. See How to Set Up Shipping for Concierge Orders.
You have the customer's billing address, which Zest uses to calculate tax.
You have an email address or phone number for each recipient.
How E-gifts in Concierge Work
With a standard Concierge project, you provide a shipping address for every recipient and Zest ships directly to them. With an e-gift project, you provide an email address or phone number instead. Each recipient receives a notification, opens a digital card with their gift message, and enters their own shipping address to accept.
You choose the gift type when you create the project:
Direct ship: Ship to addresses provided by the customer.
E-gift: Send gifts digitally by email, text, or shareable link.
Tip: New to e-gifts? How Do E-gifts Work? explains the recipient experience in more detail.
Creating an E-gift Project
In your Zest dashboard, go to Concierge and click Start project.
Enter a Project name.
Under Gift type, select E-gift.
In the Customer field, find an existing customer or add a new one.
Click Submit.
Next, add an order to your project. See How to Set Up and Manage Concierge Projects for the full walkthrough.
Building Your E-gift Order
Open an order to see everything you need to set up on one page. Your order includes these sections:
Products: The products recipients will receive, or a Choice Gift.
Shipping: A flat rate or a shipping profile.
Tax: How Zest calculates tax.
Recipients: Who receives the gifts.
E-gift design: The digital card, wrapping paper, and logo.
Order settings: The gift message template, From name, and send date.
Customer link: A link your customer can use to upload their own recipients.
Customer information: The customer's billing address.
To add products:
In the Products section, click Add product.
Search for the product by name.
Select the product and set the quantity.
Sending Choice Gifts
Choice Gifts let recipients pick their own gift from a collection you curate. Because recipients choose their product and enter their own shipping address, Choice Gifts work in e-gift projects.
Before you start: Create your Choice Gift in Choice gifts in your Zest dashboard. See Creating Choice Gifts for setup, including choosing the products in the collection.
To add a Choice Gift to an order:
In the Products section, click Add product.
Search for the Choice Gift by its title.
Select the Choice Gift and set the quantity.
When a recipient opens their gift, they browse the products in the collection, select the one they want (choosing a size or flavor if the product has variants), and enter their shipping address. Products that have gone out of stock appear as unavailable, so the recipient simply picks from what's left.
Tip: Gift swapping isn't available for Concierge e-gifts, so Choice Gifts are the way to give recipients a say in what they receive. You can send Choice Gifts and regular products in the same order.
In Concierge, a Choice Gift works like any other product, so you can apply a discount or set a custom price.
Customizing the E-gift Experience
Customize how each order looks to recipients in the E-gift design section, and personalize the message in Order settings. Changes apply to the order you're editing, so you can give each order its own look.
Digital gift cards
The digital gift card is the card recipients see when they open their gift. The Preview updates as you make changes, so you can see exactly how the gift will look.
In the E-gift design section, scroll through the cards under Choose a digital card.
Select the card you want to use.
To use your own design, click Add a card design and upload a 960x960 px .jpg or .png file.
Wrapping paper
Each e-gift arrives in virtual wrapping paper. Below the preview, use the two color fields to set the color of the wrapping paper and the color of the ribbon. Enter a hex code (for example, #edd30e) in each field.
Logo
To add a logo to the gift, such as your customer's, click Upload a logo below the preview.
Gift message and From name
In the Order settings section:
Gift message template: Turn this on to add the same gift message to every recipient on the order.
From: Enter the name or company name recipients will see as the sender.
Send date: Turn this on to choose the date e-gifts arrive in your recipients' inboxes. If you leave it off, e-gifts arrive as soon as you submit the order.
Note: Choose a wrapping paper color and ribbon color that stand out from each other so the gift is easy to see on any screen.
Adding Recipients
You add e-gift recipients the same ways you add direct-ship recipients, but each recipient needs an email address or phone number instead of a shipping address. In the Recipients section, you can:
Click Upload using CSV to import a list.
Click Add recipient to enter one recipient at a time.
Share the Customer link so your customer can upload their own recipients.
Letting your customer upload recipients
In the Customer link section, choose your settings:
Limit number of recipients: Cap how many recipients your customer can add.
Allow customers to upload gift messages: Let your customer include a gift message for each recipient.
Click Copy link.
Share the link with your customer.
Delivery methods
Each e-gift is delivered one of three ways:
Email: Zest emails the recipient a link to accept their gift.
Text: Zest texts the recipient a link to accept their gift.
Shareable link: Zest creates a unique link that you or your customer share directly.
Shipping and Tax
Shipping
Because Zest doesn't know the recipient's address yet, e-gift shipping uses the e-gift zone in a shipping profile. In the Shipping section, choose one of the following:
Shipping profile: Zest uses the e-gift zone in the profile you select.
Flat rate: Enter a Price and select a Shipping method. Zest uses the e-gift zone in your default shipping profile, and the zones it covers appear under Shipping zones.
Important: Make sure the profile you use includes an e-gift zone. Without one, Zest can't price shipping for your e-gifts.
Tax
Zest calculates e-gift tax using the customer's billing address. Enter it in the Customer information section, and make sure the Tax section is set to Calculate by customer billing address. Once a recipient accepts and enters their address, your tax filing platform recalculates tax using that address for remittance. For more detail, see How Zest Handles E-Gift Sales Tax.
Invoicing and Submitting
Review your orders and recipients.
Create and send an invoice. See How to Create and Manage Invoices in Concierge.
Once the invoice is paid, click Submit order for processing.
Submitting sends the e-gifts to your recipients.
After you submit...
Recipients accept their gifts on their own schedule. As each recipient accepts, Zest creates a Child Order and pushes it to Shopify with their shipping address. Unaccepted e-gifts don't appear in Shopify.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can recipients swap their gift?
Not yet. Gift swapping isn't available for e-gifts sent through Concierge. If you want recipients to choose their own gift, send a Choice Gift instead. See Sending Choice Gifts above.
Do I need to collect shipping addresses from my customer?
No. That's the benefit of e-gifts. Recipients enter their own shipping addresses when they accept their gifts.