Introduction
This tutorial has been written to help you understand the fundamental concepts of Coupons+. It is the first part of a two-part series. You will learn how to set up automatic product discounts using product filters, offers and optionally preconditions in Coupons+.What you’ll be building
The offer: 10% off all Shoes. By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to create product discounts that:- Can target any type of products.
- Apply automatically without the customer needing to enter a coupon code manually.
- Are limited to specific quantities
- Can combine with other offers, like a Discount + Gift
- Can be restricted using preconditions
Before we begin
For this tutorial we will be using the free Coupons+ plugin for WooCommerce. If you don’t have it already, you can download it here: Coupons+.Follow along with a demo site
To make it easier for you to test and replicate the steps in this tutorial, we have designed a demo store with some dummy data that you can use for testing. This tutorial uses the exact same site and data set. It is recommended that you replicate the steps in this tutorial using the demo site.Coupons+ Demo Store
Temporary WooCommerce demo store for testing Coupons+
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Creating the coupon
From the WordPress admin dashboard, go to Marketing > Coupons > Add New Coupon, in the same way you would create a regular WooCommerce coupon.When you launch the demo site, this page is loaded by default.
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Adding the product filters
The first thing to do is selecting your product filters. For product discounts using Discount, these filters target the items that will receive the discount.-
Click Configure offer. A new popup will appear. This will guide you through the process of selecting all your necessary product filters. The first screen will ask you to select the type of deal that you plan to create.
It is important to know that the deals in this screen do not add the offer itself. Instead, these are what we call Suggested Scopes, they help you pick your product filters and offers based on the type of deal with personalized labels, screens and calls to action.
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Select Item Discounts, since that is what we are building.
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Click In Specific Categories and type Shoes, then from the search results select that category or hit
return/enter
We are targeting categories for this tutorial, but you can select any other filter that you need. For example, to discount specific product IDs, you would add the Products filter instead. -
Click Next. In this screen you will be asked if you want to limit by quantity. Currently, we are discounting any number of Shoes, so we will skip this step for now. If you want to limit quantities, you can do so in this step.
Click Apply to finish adding your product filters. A new tree will be created. It should look like the following image:
About product filters
Product filters are filters, not cart conditions. Coupons+ will take all items in the cart and run this filter group against them. For this example, Coupons+ will look at each item in the cart and only select all that are in the Shoes category.
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Adding your offers
So Coupons+ will filter these items. Now what? We need to tell it what to do with them. For this tutorial we want to apply an offer to them, so let’s add one.- Click Add offer
- Select Discount. This will open the configuration screen for this offer.
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Set the amount to discount. The discount will be applied to each item that was filtered. Not all offers apply the discount to the passed items. For example, the BOGO offers use the filtered items as conditionals and apply discount to additional items.*
For this tutorial, set it to 10%.
We’ll leave the other options untouched, but you can configure this offer depending on your needs. For example, if you wanted to apply a fixed discount per item, you would select the $ option instead of %.
*As a matter of fact, this Discount offer only applies the discount to the filtered items when that option is selected in Apply to. Here’s a table for this offer that illustrates this.
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Click Done. The offer will be added. Your tree should look like the following image:
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Applying the coupon automatically
Right now if you save the coupon, the customer will need to apply the coupon manually for the offer to take effect. You can make the coupon apply automatically when the cart has eligible items from your product filters.On the top-right, click Manually Applied to change the mode to auto. It should look like the following image:
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Saving the coupon
All that’s needed to get this offer live is to click Save in the top-right corner of the dashboard. Your coupon will be saved and ready to be used in your shop.You do not need to enter a coupon code! Coupons+ will automatically generate one for you if you choose to leave the coupon code field empty.
Testing the coupon
Now that the coupon has been saved and is set to auto-apply, let’s make sure it is working as expected.Adding the products to the cart
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Go to the shop.
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Add an eligible item. For this tutorial, let’s add the Adidas Ultraboost Light ($190) and go to the cart. A 10% discount will be applied automatically to it. We did not need to enter a coupon code since we set the coupon to be auto-applied.
Try adding other items that are not shoes, you will see that the discount will only be applied to the shoes. Try also adding more shoes to see the discount apply to all of them.
Restricting by quantities
The current filters will select all shoes in the cart. But what if you wanted to limit the discount to 2 pairs max., or apply the discount when the customer buys 2 or more? You will need to add a Quantity filter to the current set of filters. To do so, from the Coupons+ Dashboard:1
Click on the Categories filter (currently shows Shoes). The config screen for this filter set (context) will open.
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From the right sidebar, select And Quantity Quantity. This will add a Quantity filter to the current set.For this example, we will add the discount to 2 items, so set the amount to 2.
If you need any other type of quantity restriction, like when buying x or more (bulk discount), you can click on Fixed and select the option that you need (for example: Minimum)
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Click Apply Changes. Your tree should look like the following image:
Filters: deciding which items to pick
Now that we are restricting by quantities, what happens when there are more items in the cart than the specified quantity? Let’s say the customer has 3 pairs of shoes in the cart. What happens now? Is the coupon rejected? Coupons+ will only take the specified quantities and ignore the rest. If the customer has 3 pairs of shoes in the cart, the filters will take 2. Now which 2 of the 3 items? The cheapest 2 will be taken since the Discount offer prioritizes items with a lower price. This prioritization depends on the type of offer. For example, BOGO offers will take the most expensive items (and ignore them so the discount applies to extra items). You can read more about creating a BOGO offer here. Try adding more pairs of shoes and see the discount apply only to the 2 cheapest.Adding an extra offer
What if you also want to give the customer a free shipping discount alongside the Discount offer? Or perhaps a Buy X Get Y offer to apply a discount to other products (or maybe a gift) when buying 2 pairs of shoes? Coupons+ allows you to add more than one offer per group of filters. For this tutorial, let’s add a BOGO: Different Products so that we also give the customer a free tee when buying 2 pairs of shoes! To add another offer for this filter group, from the Coupons+ Dashboard:1
Click on the + button attached to the last offer:
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From the available offers, Click BOGO: Different Products, add the product to discount and click Done. Your offers tree should look something like the following image:
Each offer is configured and applied independently and each will be applied when the filters pass valid items. This means that the Discount offer will be applied to the filtered items and the BOGO offer to the Tee.
Restricting the coupon with a precondition
Finally, what if you wanted to restrict this offer only under specific conditions other than the products in the cart, like restricting the offer for a specific user role or a specific date? You would need to add a precondition that must be passed before the coupon can be applied. To add a precondition, from the Coupons+ Dashboard:1
Click on No Preconditions on the right. You will be presented with a list of available preconditions. For this example let’s just restrict it to a specific date.
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Scroll down and select Date, configure it and click Done
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