Gifts on GrownBy

Gifts on GrownBy

This article discusses some ways to facilitate gifts on GrownBy. 

Customers may wish to gift an item or a CSA share on GrownBy; they might want to purchase an item from a farm for a friend, pay for a family member’s CSA share, send a present for a holiday, or provide farm credit to be used in a GrownBy shop. 

Gift Cards or Farm Credit

Farm Credit in GrownBy is a declining balance or credit which is specific to one farm, like a gift card. Read more about farm credit here. 

Giving a gift of farm credit 
  1. The farmer creates a Farm Credit Product in a few denominations of farm credit.
  2. The gift giver purchases the digital product and provides the recipients’ email address to the farm. They can communicate this information in text or email communications with the farm and/or with their order note at checkout. The gift giver may also want to tell the farmer when to add the recipient, if applicable. See the order notes on the HTML view of the order or in the orders csv export in the column called "Customer Notes."
  3. The farmer creates an account for the gift recipient if they are a new customer. This can happen after the gift date to not confuse–or surprise– the recipient!
  4. The Farmer adds the farm credit to the recipient’s account via the customer detail page.
  5. The farmer deducts the farm credit from the account of the giver.

Gifts of Standard Items

For a one-time gift, like a gift of honey, a class, a tote bag, or a Thanksgiving pie, the farm and customer could simply record that this is a gift outside of GrownBy. For example, if Mary Poppins gives her son, Joe, a pie, you may simply make a note on the sign in sheet that Joe is picking up. The gift giver should make a note about the gift on the order at checkout that is visible to the farmer. If this is an item to be shipped, the giver must communicate the address of the recipient.



However, if gifting an item is a common occurrence or if you need your sign in sheets and records to be exact, you could: 
  1. Direct Mary to make the order and pay for it. 
  2. Cancel her order without providing a refund.
  3. Create an account for Joe and build an order for the pie. Mark the order as paid on checkout.
  4. Refund the associated invoice with Joe’s account without deleting the order (this keeps your sales numbers correct). Then Joe gets the notifications for pickup and Joe’s name is on the sign-in sheet.

For the generous gift of a CSA share

  1. Make a digital Product that is the cost of the share. It could be something like “Gift Vegetable Share.” If you want to offer all of your different shares–such as egg, bread, fruit, etc-, you could make individual digital options for each of those. You can create and use the category “gifts.”
  2. Instruct gift givers to order that gift product using their own name, addresses, credit card info etc. Instruct them to provide the name and email address of the recipient, plus any information about pickup location and timing that you might need in the notes at checkout. If you would like, you can make a note in the gift giver’s customer detail page with the name of the gift recipient. 
  3. If you choose to, you could create a digital “gift card” in Canva or another program to provide to the gift giver. It’s nice to have an item to print and place in a card to represent the gift. The printable may also provide contact info for the farm, should the gift recipient need to reach out prior to being subscribed.
  4. Create an account for the gift recipient. Make an order for them for the share or shares in question. Mark as paid.
  5. Refund associated invoices on the recipent’s customer account under invoices. Since this order was marked at paid on checkout (so that the customer didn't get an invoice or strange notification), you won't have the option to void the receipt, but rather to refund. This refunding makes sure that there isn't double income showing for this given share.
  6. Now this customer will show on all of the distribution lists, sign in sheets, and email lists. The gift recipient will receive email reminders like all other members. 

If it is important for the customer to NOT see the cost of the share, or if you are already using templates.
  1. Make a digital Product that is the cost of the share. 
  2. Instruct gift givers to order that gift product using their own name, addresses, credit card info etc. Instruct them to provide the name and email address of the recipient, plus any information about pickup location and timing that you might need in the order notes at checkout and/or via email. If you would like, you can make a note in the gift giver’s customer detail page with the name of the gift recipient. 
  3. Create a digital “gift card” in Canva or another program to provide to the gift giver, if you'd like.
  4. Create a $0 Gift share that is a child template of the Main share. For example, the parent template may be “Weekly Vegetable Share” and the child templates could be “Gift Share”. Hide this share and keep it hidden expect when making an order for the customer.

Still have questions? 

We have answers. Email GrownBy support directly at support@grownby.app, or schedule a one-on-one call with one of our team members. A real human with farming experience will get back to you as soon as possible!

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