I noticed within the last couple of weeks a "present" or something similar from the store staff in my shopping cart. Tonight I finally attemtpted to download it and I received the message "failure hard" after entering in my credit card information. What does all this mean? Was there a free gift and, if so, why was I not able to get it?

It was a .jpg accidentally uploaded instead of a zip file, the file is no longer available (it was there for a couple hours before we caught the error). If it's still in your shopping now, it will need to be deleted. A "failure hard" on a credit card transaction means the card was declined, or the expiration, name, address or zip didn't match correctly.