Sep 12, 2025

NEW: Gift Product Protection

Prevent customers from adding gift products directly to cart or accessing their product pages.

Overview

Gift Product Protection uses a two-layer system to maintain gift integrity: blocking direct cart additions and preventing access to gift product pages. This ensures gifts can only be obtained through the EliteCart reward system, preventing abuse and maintaining clean cart recovery emails.

Key Benefits

  • Prevents gift abuse - Customers cannot bypass reward requirements

  • Cleaner cart recovery - No abandoned carts with unauthorized gifts

  • Improved customer experience - Clear messaging when gifts are restricted

Protection Methods

Method 1: Block Direct Cart Additions

Products with the _elite_gift product type cannot be added directly to cart.

How it works:

  1. Customer attempts to add gift product to cart

  2. EliteCart detects the _elite_gift product type

  3. Addition is blocked and an error message is shown to the customer

  4. In addition, regular cart checks remove unauthorized products

Setup steps:

  1. In Shopify Admin, go to Products

  2. Select your gift product

  3. Change Product type to _elite_gift

  4. Save the product

Error message shown: "This item cannot be purchased."

Customize the message:

  1. Go to Languages & Translations in EliteCart

  2. Find Gift product error message

  3. Enter your custom message

  4. Click Save

Method 2: Block Product Page Access

Products tagged with _elite_block_page redirect visitors away from the product page.

How it works:

  1. Customer tries to visit gift product page

  2. System detects the _elite_block_page tag

  3. Redirects to previous page (if available) or homepage

  4. Cart drawer automatically opens after redirect

Setup steps:

  1. In Shopify Admin, go to Products

  2. Select your gift product

  3. Add tag: _elite_block_page

  4. Save the product

Note: This tag is automatically added when creating shipping insurance products through EliteCart.

Cart Page Blocking

Block access to the default Shopify cart page to ensure customers use EliteCart.

Enable cart page blocking:

  1. Go to Cart DesignerAdvanced

  2. Enable Block Cart Page

  3. Save settings

Behavior:

  • Redirects to previous page if available

  • Otherwise redirects to homepage

  • EliteCart drawer opens automatically after redirect

Automatic Gift Cleanup

EliteCart includes failsafe protection that automatically removes invalid gifts:

Cleanup triggers:

  • Cart changes (add/remove items)

  • Reward threshold changes

  • Page refreshes

What gets removed:

  • Unauthorized gifts

  • Gift rewards that are no longer qualified for

  • Gifts exceeding allowed quantity

Implementation Checklist

  • Set product type to _elite_gift

  • Add _elite_block_page tag

Compatibility

Works with:

  • All EliteCart reward types

  • Two-step cart

  • Multi-currency stores

  • Multi-language

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