TL;DR: With Shopify’s new no-code checkout modification, brands can effortlessly embed apps like Giftnote, enhancing the shopping experience from product pages to checkout. This led to the release of Giftnote's theme widgets and front-end drop-ins, improving the gifting process for all Shopify users, Plus and Core.

In the last six months, we've been focusing a lot of our energy on our big enterprise clients—the folks who are mostly using Shopify Plus. 

We saw a golden opportunity to tap into the new checkout extensions that Shopify Plus rolled out. This led us to create a gift messaging widget that slots right into checkout pages, making the gifting process smoother for brands and their customers as they start to use Shopify's new checkout experience.

In the past, Shopify's checkout had some bumps. Many brands found it necessary to customise it to their specific needs, which, while providing more tailored experiences, often resulted in slower load times and even brought some limitations to the platform.

Shopify's response?

‍They’ve introduced a checkout modification that works just like a no-code editor. This lets brands easily add apps and plugins, resulting in a robust checkout environment that solves many issues that brands have previously faced with Shopify checkout.

But here's the really cool part: This new setup doesn't limit access to the checkout's source code. Instead, it nudges (or sometimes even pushes) brands to embed apps, like Giftnote, right into the system. It’s similar to how you’d embed apps in an Online Store 2.0 setting, Shopify’s theming network.

Seeing as we have such a relentless pursuit of optimizing the gifting experience, we prioritized this as a feature to get the first-mover advantage. 

And it’s worked really well, particularly with our larger enterprise brands. But we didn’t stop there.

Listening to Our Users: Improving The Gifting Experience

As we continued to grow and listened to the feedback from our users, we learned that brands wanted to start the gifting experience earlier in the shopping journey, not just at the checkout. 

This enters our latest release at Giftnote.

We developed theme widgets and front-end drop-ins, enabling brands to introduce the gift messaging option on product pages and in the shopping cart. This means the gifting experience can begin earlier in the customer journey with two points of contact rather than one. 

But wait, there’s more! We've also expanded our sending options. ‍

It's a common scenario—we've all experienced that "oops" moment when we've forgotten to send a gift on time or the delivery has taken longer than expected. 

Originally, Giftnote allowed for sending messages upon package delivery, with tracking via the carrier. Now, we offer three options:

1. Send on package delivery, as before.
2. Schedule sending for a future date, independent of the carrier.
3. Send instantly.

That means gifters can get that timely personalized message to the recipient regardless of whether the package is there or not. Plus, if an item is sold out or on pre-order, the additional sending options cover more scenarios. 

A Closer Look: How Brands Use Giftnote’s New Features

In the example below, UNDN LAQR by Machine Gun Kelly uses Giftnote to educate their customers about the gift message option on the product page, before adding to the cart.

Once the customer clicks on ‘Add Gift Message’ this loads a quick modal, which is powered by the Giftnote app (no coding required). The modal can be completely customized by the brand with the language, logo, and styling. 

Once the customer clicks ‘Add my gift message’, they can quickly add the recipient name, a personalized message, and select sending options. 

Any information added on the product page carries forward to checkout, allowing for last-minute edits and enhancements. This approach offers two points of contact rather than one, creating a tidier, more integrated experience

For brands that don’t want to feature the gift message widget on the product page, there’s the flexibility to include it on the cart slide-out instead, like in House of Knives' example below. This way, customers can easily add their gift message via a pop-up modal, maintaining the same seamless shopping experience.

‍Now onto gift cards.

Not only can the customer personalize the gift card with a timed gift message, but with Giftnote’s expanded sending options, customers can schedule the sending of the gift card itself.

This feature eliminates the need for last-minute gift card purchases and lets you forward-plan your gifts without any added stress.

Currently, most merchant stores require customers to buy a gift card on the day they want it sent. But we offer the freedom to schedule it for a future date, providing a more thoughtful and stress-free gifting experience.

The following Giftnote customers have all migrated to our integrated Gift Voucher offering. In addition by using  our Klaviyo integration, they are able to provide ideas to the gift recipient of what they can purchase with their voucher credit and ideally create an upsell opportunity prior to them purchasing.

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And it’s not just Shopify Plus merchants who can benefit. 

We are excited to announce that our new widget can be integrated into any Shopify store. Regardless of the type of Shopify license a brand holds, they can utilize Giftnote's features to offer a better, more seamless gifting experience to their customers. 

We also offer a white glove implementation service for large-volume brands or those with unique order flows or purchasing behaviors.

We're already working on upcoming features that will automate back-office processes and further enhance the gifting experience for both store owners and customers. 

Stay tuned.

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