Coupon promotions provide a means of offering discounts on your storefront after a shopper has added one or more items to the cart. Unlike other discounts, shoppers must receive a unique code in order to apply it to their order. This allows you to limit who can apply a given discount, and is a useful tool for encouraging purchases in your marketing emails, such as newsletters targeted to customers in specific groups or abandoned cart saver notifications.
This article covers Coupon promotions created with the legacy editor. The standard editor allows for additional functionality, such as the ability to exclude promotions, shipping and date availability restrictions, and fixed price promotions for offering several products at once.
How It Works
The legacy promotion editor provides tools to create different types of coupon discounts with specific conditions, such as “buy one get one free” or “free shipping on orders totaling $50 or more”. While creating your coupon promotion, you can apply further restrictions such as limiting it to certain customer groups or product categories, specifying a date for the coupon to automatically expire, and setting a maximum number of uses.
Once a shopper has met the conditions for the promotion, they can enter the coupon in the cart or at checkout to receive the discount on their order. You can also set up notification banners to inform shoppers of the coupon criteria and automatically display the code when they have been met. There are also fields for entering coupon codes when creating draft or manual orders in the control panel.
Requirements
- To manage Coupon promotions, you must have the following permissions enabled on your user account:
- Manage Promotions
- Edit Promotions
- Add Promotions
- Delete Promotions
- To limit promotions to specific Customer Groups, your store must be on a Plus plan or higher.
Viewing Coupon Promotions
To view and manage your Coupon promotions, go to Marketing › Promotions, then click the Coupon tab.
Here you will see a list of your active and disabled Coupon promotions. You'll also see the following statistics and settings:
- Name — the internal name of the coupon promotion
- Coupon code — the text that the customer enters into the coupon field (not case sensitive)
- Currency — the currency the promotion affects. Percentage-based discounts can optionally be applied to "All Currencies".
- Uses — how often the promotion has been used and the total number of allowed uses
- Start — the date and time for the promotion to activate
- End — the date and time for the promotion to expire
- Active — whether or not the promotion is currently active; toggle to enable or disable
To permanently delete a coupon promotion, check the box next to its name, then click Delete in the top navigation. This option only displays once you have selected a Coupon promotion.
Click the Action menu to the right of a Coupon promotion to edit the coupon settings, delete the promotion, or view orders that contain the coupon code.
Why is “View orders” disabled? If a Coupon promotion has multiple codes added via the API, the View orders action is not supported and will be disabled.
Types of Coupon Promotions
Coupon promotions utilizes the same discount types available in Automatic promotions (legacy editor). They are:
Shipping discounts
- Order at least X units of product Y, get free shipping to specific shipping zones
- Orders totaling more than amount, get free shipping to specific shipping zones
Did you know? If your discount conflicts with your shipping zone setup, the promotion will take priority over the shipping zone rule.
Product discounts
- Buy one get one free
- Buy one get something else free
- Buy (X units) of Product A, get (Y units) of Product B for amount or % off per unit
- Apply an amount or % off to Product X
To learn more about this discount, see Creating Product Discount Promotions.
Brand discounts
- Apply a amount or % discount to each item in one or more brands
Category discounts
- Apply an amount or % discount to each item in one or more categories
- Buy X units in (Category A), get Y additional units in the same category free (must be of equal or lesser value)
- Apply a tiered discount to applicable products based on the quantity of items ordered within one or more categories
Order discounts
- Apply a % discount to the order subtotal
- Spend at least the specified amount, apply an amount or % discount to the order subtotal
- Spend at least the specified amount, get one unit of Product Y for an amount or % off
- Spend at least the specified amount, get Y% off (one or all) unit(s) of the (least or most) expensive item(s) in the cart
Customer discounts
- Discount amount for repeat customers
- X% discount for repeat customers
Creating a Coupon Promotion
To create a Coupon promotion, go to Marketing › Promotions, then select the Coupons tab. Click + Create, then select With legacy editor from the drop-down menu.
Enter an internal Promotion Name and specify the Coupon Code that customers will use at checkout. Promotion names are limited to 100 characters and coupon codes are limited to 50 characters.
Then, select which currency the promotion will affect. For percentage-based discounts, you can also optionally apply the discount to "All Currencies".
Choose a Promotion Type from the drop-down menu. , then select the individual discount you wish to use. See Types of Coupon Promotions above for a full list of discounts and promotion types.
If you are using a promotion that requires additional information, such as selecting a particular product, category, or shipping zone, add that information now.
Select All customers or a specific Customer group. Use this to specify which customers are eligible to receive the promotion. For example, you may want to limit the discount to wholesale, high-value, or new customers. For more information, see Customer Groups.
Under Duration, specify a start date and time for your promotion to run. Select your start date from the calendar, and the start time from the drop-down. Click Add end date to specify a date and time for the promotion to expire, then set that date and time. For more on the Duration feature, see Duration Dates and Times.
You can limit discounts to a certain number of uses by enabling Usage Limits.
- Limit total number of uses — enter a value to limit total number of uses
- Limit number of uses per customer — enter a value to limit uses per email address
For Brand promotion types, you can exclude specific product categories and subcategories from the promotion.
For Product, Brand, and Category promotion types, you can exclude items with sale pricing by enabling the Exclude Items on Sale option.
Click Activate to have your promotion take effect after saving. Unchecking it will disable the promotion, but keep it in your control panel for later use.
Offering a free item? If you are using one of the Buy One Get One discounts, there will be an additional option to add any eligible free product automatically to the shopper's cart. By default, this option is enabled. If you disable it, shoppers will need to manually add the free product to their cart before applying the code.
Duration Dates and Times
The Duration settings allow you to set a specific period during which your promotion should run. When selecting your date period, keep the following in mind:
- All dates and times will use your store's timezone and daylight savings correction selections (see Date and Timezone Settings).
- Changes to promotion settings will only apply to orders placed after the changes are saved, regardless of the original start date and time.
- If you update your store's timezone or change the daylight savings time setting, your promotion times adjust to match. For example, if your promotion is set to end at 12pm, and you uncheck Enable DST Correction, your promotion will adjust to end at 11am.
Promotion Notifications
Promotion messaging can be used to upsell, announce eligibility, and congratulate. These optional notifications will display only if the shopper meets the parameters of the notification ,and only after the coupon code has been applied. Notifications utilize the WYSIWYG Editor and can include images and links to specific pages. You can also use placeholders to inject certain information into the notifications.
Notifications will display as a banner or pop-up on the cart page, depending on your store's theme and styling. An example banner notification can look like this:
An example pop-up notification can look like this:
Congratulations Notification Message
This message displays when the shopper has qualified for the discount and no further actions are needed. Uncheck Show this message on cart page to disable this notification from appearing.
Eligible Notification Message
This message appears when a shopper qualifies for a promotion but more action is needed. For example, it's useful for Buy one get something else free promotions, where the shopper needs to select product options before the free item can be added to their cart.
Upsell Notification Message
This message appears when a shopper has added something to their cart but does not qualify for a discount yet.
Promotional Notification Message
The promotional message appears when other notifications do not apply. For example, this notification will display when a shopper has added something to their cart but has made no progress toward meeting the condition of the promotion.
It will display as a notification or a pop-up depending on the theme and only after the coupon has been applied.
Placeholders
The following placeholders can be used in notification messages. Some placeholders only apply to certain discount types.
- %%condition.required%% — The total number of items or spend amount required to satisfy the condition.
- %%condition.matched%% — The number of matching items in the cart or the total cart value contributing to satisfying the condition.
- %%condition.remaining%% — The number of items or spend amount remaining to qualify.
- %%action.discount.applied%% — The actual discount amount applied by the rule.
- %%action.discount.configured%% — The discount amount set when the rule was created.
- %%action.offers.redeemed%% — The number of items that have been discounted.
- %%action.offers.redeemable%% — The number of items for which a discount is available but not redeemed.
- %%action.offers.total%% — The total number of items eligible for discount.
FAQ
General
Can I use multiple coupon codes on an order?
By default, only one coupon code can be used at a time on a given order. However, you can enable your shoppers to use multiple coupons created with the legacy or standard promotion editor. To learn more about the requirements, setup instructions, and considerations for using multiple coupons, see Automatic and Coupon Promotions (Standard Editor).
Are coupon codes case sensitive?
No, however we do restrict the characters you can use when creating a new coupon code or promotion. The following characters can be used:
- a-z
- A-Z
- 0-9
- Underscore and hyphen ( _ and - )
If you have an existing promotion that uses special characters in the coupon code, it will continue to work. If you edit the coupon code, you will be prompted to ensure it meets the above criteria before saving the updated coupon code.
Can coupon promotions be combined with other discounts?
Yes, you can stack coupon promotions with automatic promotions, free shipping, and other discount types.
Can I edit a coupon promotion in the control panel if it was created via the API?
Promotions created with the Promotions API can be edited in the control panel as long as they only use rules which can be configured with the standard editor. If the promotion uses conditions that can only be configured via the API, such as multiple logical operators, it is marked with a tooltip to indicate that the promotion must be updated via the API.
Can I create a shipping coupon promotion based on my ShipperHQ shipping zones?
No, the ability to limit a coupon to specific shipping zones relies on our built-in Shipping page. These features will not work if you are using an app like ShipperHQ to manage shipping.
Rules and Calculations
Can I choose how multiple promotions in a cart are calculated?
Yes. Promotion Settings can be accessed in Settings › Promotions and coupons. You can choose to calculate multiple promotions per order independently or cumulatively.
- Independently: each promotion is applied to the original price of the included products.
- Cumulatively: promotions work cumulatively off each other, with each subsequent discount applied to the preceding discount based on the your promotions order.
Note that this feature is store-wide, not channel specific. This means that the setting will apply to all storefronts. For more information, see Promotions and Coupon Settings in Automatic and Coupon Promotions (Standard Editor).
Can products with a zero price be used to trigger a promotion?
The setting allowing zero price products to trigger promotions can be toggled on or off in Settings › Promotions and coupons.
Note that this feature is store-wide, not channel specific. This means that the setting will apply to all storefronts. For more information, see Promotions and Coupon Settings in Automatic and Coupon Promotions (Standard Editor).
How do promotions interact with manual discounts?
Manual discounts are applied when creating a manual order or when editing an existing order.
- Manual Orders: Manual discounts will be additive to Automatic promotions and Coupon promotions.
- Existing Orders: Manual discounts will override Automatic promotions, but be additive for an already applied Coupon promotion.
Will promotions apply discounts to products with overridden pricing?
By default, products with custom pricing, including pricing overridden by manual order or server-to-server Cart APIs, are excluded from promotions. You can allow these products to be eligible for promotions by enabling the setting in Settings › Miscellaneous under Promotion Settings.
Note that this feature is available for Enterprise plan stores and is store-wide, not channel specific. This means that the setting will apply to all storefronts.
How do category exclusions work for products in multiple categories?
Products that meet any category exclusion rule are excluded from the promotion. For example, a product in both the Boots and Sale categories would not be eligible for any promotions that exclude the Sale category.
To avoid unintended product exclusions, we recommend reviewing the products assigned to the excluded categories. You can do this using the category Action menu View products link or by exporting your products.
Can I exclude specific products from a coupon promotion?
Specific products cannot be excluded from discounts applied by coupon promotions created using the legacy editor. For more flexibility in promotion rules, such as product exclusions, see Automatic and Coupon Promotions (Standard Editor).
Troubleshooting
Why is “View Orders” disabled on a Coupon promotion’s action menu?
If a Coupon promotion has multiple codes added via the API, the View orders action is not supported and will be disabled.
When creating a coupon, why am I getting an error that says the code already exists?
Coupon codes must be unique and cannot be used in another coupon or coupon promotion, even if it is disabled. To save the coupon, use a different coupon code or delete the existing code.
If you are unable to find the existing coupon code in Marketing › Promotions under the Coupons tab, go to Marketing › Coupon Codes, and check the list there.
