Tutorial 2.7: Offering Discount Codes

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This tutorial will guide you through setting up the discount codes.

Detailed Tutorial

Discount codes are a great way to increase your online sales. You can create as many discount codes and distribute them amongst your various customers groups or distribute them to new customers inside your marketing campaigns.

Discount codes allow customers to get a percentage or the amount off the total of the goods being purchased. Please note that shipping charges are not discounted.

To create a new discount code you need to go to eCommerce -> Discount Codes. Please note that to display a discount code field in your shopping cart, you need to place {tag_discountcode} into a shopping cart layout in Admin -> More Customization Options -> Online Shop Layouts -> Shopping Cart.

Here are the explanation of the fields on that screen:

Description - Provide a description for your discount code. This is only for you to distinguish your discount codes from each other.
Discount Code - Enter your Discount Code. It can consist of any text, and will be used by your customers to claim their discount when they go through the checkout process.
Discount Code Type - You can create 3 different types of discount codes. In these types of discounts shipping is never discounted.
- Percentage of Order - Enter how much your discount code is worth as a percentage. Enter 25 for a twenty five percent discount or 15.5 for fifteen point five percent discount and so on. Only the products with an order are ever discounted. Shipping charges are never discounted. If a customer receives loyalty discounts from you, these are over and above discount code related discounts.
- Fixed Dollar Amount - This is the amount in dollars (or any other currency) that will be subtracted from the total order amount
- Free Shipping - The free shipping discount option will provide free shipping to the customer, regardless of the potential cost of shipping associated with the products in that order.
Apply discount if order value greater than (leave blank if not applicable) - You can optionally choose a minimum order value before this discount code becomes valid. If the total cost of products in the order does not exceed this value then the discount code has no effect, once this value is exceeded the discount code will be valid. You can leave this field blank if you do not want to take advantage of this feature.
Apply discount to one or more catalogs only - If you only want this discount applied to select catalogs, please choose them here. Alternatively do not select this option if you want to apply discount to all catalogs.
Expire after X redemptions (leave blank if not applicable) - If you want this discount code expired after so many uses, simply enter the relevant number here. Alternatively please leave this field blank.
Release Date/Expiry Date - Discount codes have a release and expiry date. This means the code can only be redeemed during the specified date range. There is no limit as to how many times a discount code can be used. You can at anytime disable the code by making it expired it or deleting it.

Some case studies

Offering $10 discount when customer spends $100 or more

Here are the instructions you need to follow if you need to give your customer a $10 discount if they spend at least $100 or more in your online shop.

As for every discount code you need to enter the description and the code. You then need to select the Fixed Dollar Amount, enter 10 for $10 into "Discount Percentage or Fixed Amount" field and enter 100 for $100 into "Apply discount if order value greater than" field. That's it! :)

Offer a 10% discount on products contained in a catalog "Books" only

Here are the instructions you need to follow if you need to give your customer a 10% discount to product inside a catalog called "Books".

As for every discount code you need to enter the description and the code. You then need to enter 10 for 10% into Discount Percentage or Fixed Amount, you need to tick "Apply discount to one or more catalogs only" checkbox and select the catalogue Books from the list of catalogs that appears below the checkbox.

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