Thanks, Adrian, this answer was very helpful. Unfortunately, this was not made clear to us from the beginning. In fact, there is a widget to use PayPal gift certificates that actually implies that you could just buy a gift certificate and redeem it in a store, unless you read through the entire terms of service. I actually did call PayPal in early November, and the customer service reps at PayPal seemed to think you could redeem these gift certificates in an actual store. I now have over $200 on hold for 18 months just from these first few days of having the gift certificate available. By the way, one of the purposes of offering gift certificates is that you get the money right away and provide the item or service later when the customer comes in. Otherwise, you're removing one of the key benefits to providing gift certificates. By PayPal reimbursing the business only after the customer comes in, PayPal gets use of the funds in this intervening time. That's a lot of interest-free loan money businesses and customers are providing to PayPal. I now use The Gift Card Cafe, which has been working out very well for us. We get the money right away and customers are very happy to use these gift certificates as well. It's also a lot more user friendly and the actual gift certificates look nicer in the email. You can see our gift certificates in use at our website www.FirstPeekUltrasound.com if anyone is interested.
... View more