Setting up wallets

Wallet synchronisation needs three things in place: a wallet profile, a checkout extension, and - optionally - the wallet block in your Shopify admin.

Creating a wallet profile

Profiles are how Cardigan connects to an external system. Alongside gift card providers, a profile can be a wallet provider - the external system holding your customers' funds.

From the Cardigan dashboard, select "Profiles", then "Add new profile". Choose your wallet provider, add the credentials it needs, and save. Set the profile as the default once you've tested its credentials - see Profiles for the general flow.

The credentials and configuration options differ by provider. Your provider's own page in the Providers section covers what each field means.

Wallet profiles are separate from gift card profiles

A store can run a gift card profile and a wallet profile at the same time. They're independent: gift cards continue to work exactly as they did, and the wallet profile only governs wallet synchronisation.

Adding the checkout extension

The Wallet Synchronisation extension is what brings a customer's wallet up to date when they reach your checkout. Add it to your checkout in the Shopify checkout editor, in the same way as the gift card checkout extensions.

This extension is deliberately invisible

Unlike the gift card extensions, this one renders nothing for the customer. Its job is to synchronise the wallet so Shopify's own store credit section shows the right figure - so the checkout editor preview will look unchanged after you add it. Place it anywhere in the checkout body; the position makes no difference.

Without this extension, a customer's balance is only as current as the last synchronisation from another source, so a customer who spent in one of your stores may see a stale figure at checkout.

Extension settings

Debug mode: renders the result of each synchronisation in the checkout as a banner - the balance, whether it changed, and when it last synchronised. Useful when validating your setup, and it's visible to customers, so turn it off when you're done.

Adding the wallet block

Cardigan provides a Wallet block for the customer page in your Shopify admin, showing:

the customer's wallet balance;
their Shopify store credit balance;
when the two were last synchronised;
a Sync now button that brings them into line immediately.

This is the quickest way to answer "why doesn't this customer see their balance?" - if the two figures differ, Sync now reconciles them and tells you whether it worked.

The block has to be added to the page

App blocks in the Shopify admin don't appear on their own. Open any customer's page, add the Cardigan Wallet block from the app blocks available there, and pin it so it stays. Once added, it appears on every customer's page.

Automating wallet loads

The Add credit to wallet Shopify Flow action adds funds to a customer's wallet from any workflow you can build - a loyalty milestone, a service recovery gesture, a refund policy of your own. See Shopify Flow.

Checking it works

Store credit isn't available on development stores or in payments test mode, so this needs a real store and a real customer:

Sign in as a test customer, and add funds to their wallet in your external system.
Enter the checkout. Shopify's store credit section should offer their balance.
Complete an order paying with store credit, and confirm the funds are deducted from their wallet.
Refund the order to store credit, and confirm the funds return to their wallet.

The Wallet block on the customer's page in the Shopify admin shows both balances at each step, which makes it the easiest place to watch what's happening.