Discounts are an essential feature of eCommerce stores. Customers love the fact that they get a discount for a purchase. When customers are able to apply a coupon code for discount during checkout, there is a feel-good factor about getting the best price. This is why eCommerce merchants are generally successful to bring new customers as well as existing ones to their store through coupons. If you have a WooCommerce store, you will be able to create an effective coupon strategy pretty easily. In this article, we will familiarize you on how to add coupons on your WooCommerce store.
How to add coupons on WooCommerce?
WooCommerce has a default option to create and manage coupons. First, you have to enable the use of coupons in the General settings.
Go to WooCommerce > Settings > General and tick the checkbox to enable the use of coupons. Here, you can also define how coupon discounts will be calculated when multiple coupons are applicable. If you want to apply the coupon sequentially, enable the next option as well. This will make sure that the first coupon will be applied on the full price and the second on the discounted price and so on.
Read more on configuring the general settings of WooCommerce here.
Once the use of coupon codes is enabled, you will see an option to configure coupons on the WordPress admin panel below WooCommerce. You can click this to create and manage coupons.
Click the ‘Create your first coupon’ button to start creating a coupon.
On the coupon generation page, you will see an option to add a coupon code as well as an optional description field. You can type a custom coupon code, or can use the button to generate a coupon code automatically.
Next, you can configure the coupon data settings. There are three different sections to help you set up your coupon strategy. We will go through each of these sections.
General
In the general section, you can configure the type of discounts you want to offer through your coupons.
The first option here is the Discount type. You can choose from three options:
- Percentage discount
- Fixed basket discount
- Fixed product discount
With percentage discount, you will be able to specify a percentage value that will be applied to the cart value. For example, you can choose this option and set 10 in the next field to provide a 10% discount on the cart value.
When a customer tries to checkout after applying this coupon code, a discount of 10% will be applied to the total cart value.
Fied basket discount, on the other hand, will apply a discount of the specified value to the cart. This will not depend on the products in the cart or the total value of the cart.
When a customer adds a product to the cart, the fixed discount will be applied.
With Fixed product discount, the specified amount will be applied on each product in the cart.
So, for the same example as above, the discount will be applied on all three products in the cart. So, the discount amount will be $30.
Customizing the coupons
Now, what you have seen above are just the basic scenarios that you can manage with the coupon settings. You can make them suit your business strategies by adding different conditions and restrictions. Read on to find out more.
In the General section, you can also set up an expiry date for the coupon and also define whether it should offer free shipping.
If you enable the free shipping option, you have to make sure that a free shipping method is configured in your shipping settings, and you have chosen it to require a valid free shipping coupon. In fact, this will help you ensure that only those who have the coupon are able to avail the free shipping option.
Usage restriction
The next section that will help you set up your coupon strategy is Usage restriction. First of all, you can set a minimum and maximum value to avail the coupon discount. This could be a basic strategy that you can adopt when you are trying to improve your average order value.
Next, you can define whether the coupon can be used along with other coupons. If ‘Individual use only’ is enabled, customers will not be able to avail that particular coupon along with other coupons.
Similarly, you can exclude sale items from the purview of a coupon code. If enabled, customers won’t be able to apply it on products on sale. For basket coupons, it will apply only if no sale products are available in the cart.
Also, you can include or exclude specific products in the scope of a coupon. While creating a coupon, specify the products you want to be included or excluded in the designated fields.
Similarly, you can specify categories as well.
Also, this section you can specify the emails of customers who are allowed to avail that particular coupon code. This will help you offer personalized discounts to certain customers.
Usage limits
You can also set different usage limits for the coupons that you create. There are three options here:
- Usage limit per coupon – Here you can define how many times a coupon can be used before it expires. This allows you to limit the usage of the coupon. Simply enter a number to create the usage restriction.
- Limit usage to X items – This is applicable when you create product specific coupons. When multiple products with coupon applicable, you can restrict the coupon applicable to only a specified number of products. For example, if you set this as two, the discount will be applied only to two products in the cart even when more than two applicable products are available in the cart. Enter a value to define the usage limit.
- Usage limit per user – This one determines how many times a particular user can avail a coupon. An individual registered user will be recognized by the user ID, whereas a guest user is identified with the billing email id. You can enter a number to specify the usage limit per user.
Helping the customers find the coupon
Once you create coupons on your store, it is important to make sure that it reaches the right customers. For this, you can copy the coupon code and send it through email. A lot of store owners make use of social media and on-site banners to familiarize coupons.
Plugins to enhance coupon strategy
If the default coupon options are not enough for your store strategy, you can always find several interesting extensions to enhance the coupon capabilities. Here are some of the interesting plugins to help you with coupon strategies.
Smart Coupons
If you want a comprehensive coupon management option, you can consider purchasing this plugin. It will help you bulk generate coupons and send to a lot of customers easily. You can also generate gift coupons and store credits using this plugin. Single site subscription is priced at $99.
Url Coupons
You can create unique coupon urls using this plugin. When customers click this link and reaches your site, the coupon will be applied automatically. It will be a great strategy to improve conversion rate, as customers don’t have to search for coupon code while check out. For $49, you can get a single site subscription of this plugin.
Free Gift Coupons
This plugin lets you associate a product as a free gift option. When the customer adds the coupon code, the free product will be automatically added to the cart. You can get the single site subscription of this plugin for $29.
Group Coupons
Based on user roles and customer groups, you can restrict who will be able to use the code with the help of this plugin. It will be a great help to create a custom coupon strategy on your WooCommerce store. The price of the plugin is $49.
WooCommerce Coupon Campaigns
It is important to measure the success of any marketing activity. This plugin will help you create coupon campaigns and measure their success rate easily. The single site subscription has a price tag of $49.
Coupon Referral Program
This will help you create referral coupons on your WooCommerce store. Both parties, the customer who is referring and the customer who is referred, will be rewarded with this strategy. You can get it for a single site for $29.
WooCommerce Coupon Restrictions
In the default WooCommerce coupon settings, you can restrict customers only based on email ids when creating coupons. With this plugin, you can restrict coupon usage based on user roles, location, etc., as well as based on whether they are new or existing customers. Single site subscription of this plugin has a price tag of $49.
Scratch Coupons for WooCommerce
You can use this plugin to reduce cart abandonment on your store. It will help you send last-minute offers to customers just when they show intent to leave the cart. The plugin will help you create interactive popup notifications on your store. It will cost you $29.
Here is the video with a detailed description of how to add a coupon to your WooCommerce store.
