A Comprehensive Guideline on managing coupons with WooCommerce

As an owner of a WooCommerce enabled e-store you'd have definitely enjoyed multiple features and functions that come with the WooCommerce tool-kit. Coupons are one of the best-known tools for making your customers come back to you on a repetitive basis. If you are planning to offer discounts and rewards to your customers then learning about the WooCommerce Coupon Management utility is something you'll regret missing.


If you've ever chosen to hire WordPress developer, you might be well familiar with the pros associated with building a coupon website using WordPress. Through this blog, I intend to share with you all the key steps that mark efficient handling of various discount coupons which are being made available to the product purchasers.

So, let's come to the steps now:

Step 1- Activate the use of coupons on your WooCommerce e-store

As the very first step, you need to inform WooCommerce that you'll be using coupons on your e-store. For this, you simply need to go to your WooCommerce admin dashboard where you need to click on the 'Settings' option available within the left hand sidebar. Now, click on the 'Checkout' tab available on this page and against the label 'Checkout' simply select the check-box for “Enable the use of coupons'. The screen-shot for this step is displayed below:

 

Step 2- Add new coupons

In order to add a new coupon, simply scroll down within the left-hand sidebar and click on 'WooCommerce'. After this, click on 'Coupons' . A page similar to the one shown below will be displayed:

On the Dashboard, scroll down the left-hand sidebar and click on “WooCommerce”, before clicking on “Coupons” from the dropdown that appears. The coupons page consists of a box that shows all of the coupons you have created so far. To create a new coupon, click “Add Coupon” at the top of the page. Thanks to the quick availability of WordPress plugin development professionals, we can easily get access to a wide range of plugins custom-made for performing tweaks to a WP-powered site/blog.

Coming back to the tutorial, on the above page, click on 'Add Coupon' button. A page similar to the one shown below will be displayed:

On this screen, you'll be required to enter values for the following fields:

• Coupon Code- Use this textbox for specifying the code that the users would need to enter in order to apply for the respective coupon.
• Description- Use this text-area for entering a brief description for the coupon. This information would be displayed along with the coupon on the front-end.

Once you're done with inputting values for the above fields, proceed ahead with specifying coupon data which is being segregated into the following sections:

• General

The screen for this section is similar to the one shown below:

 

So, the fields covered on this form include:

• Discount Type- Use this dropdown for selecting the discount type in relation to the respective coupon. You may choose from the following options available within this drop-down list:

1. Cart discount- Select this option if you want to offer a fixed total discount for the entire shopping cart.

2. Cart % discount- Select this option if you want to offer a percentage discount for the entire shopping cart.

3. Product discount- Select this option if you want to offer a fixed total discount for only a selected group of products.

4. Product % discount- Select this option if you want to offer a specific percentage discount for a chosen group of products.

• Coupon amount- Use this to enter a fixed value or percentage discount on the basis of the discount type chosen above. Here, please note that a value entered without the currency unit or percentage sign will be automatically added, for example: a value entered as 20 will be treated as 10% or $10.
• Allow free shipping- Select this checkbox if you want to enable free shipping(i.e. Zero shipping cost) for the product(for which the respective coupon has been used)
• Apply before tax- Select this checkbox if you want the discount coupon to be applicable on the product well before the tax calculation for the same.
• Coupon expiry date- Use this date picker for selecting the data which when passed will make the coupon invalid for use.

• Usage Restriction

The screen for this section is similar to the one shown below:

The fields covered within this section are explained below:

• Minimum spend- Use this textbox for setting a minimum sub-total that the user needs to have in order to avail the respective coupon. The customer's cart sub-total+tax will be compared to the value entered here.
• Individual Use only- Select this checkbox if you don't want the coupon to be used in conjunction with other coupons.
• Exclude sale items- Select this checkbox if you don't want the coupon to be applicable for products put on sale.
• Products- Use this textbox for selecting products that must be added to the user's cart in order to enable him/her to apply for the respective coupon.
• Exclude products- Use this textbox for selecting products that must not be added to the user's cart in order to enable him/her to apply for the respective coupon.
• Product categories- Use this textbox for defining a list of product categories that the user's cart must contain in order to be eligible for availing the coupon.
• Exclude categories- Use this textbox for defining a list of product categories that the user's cart must not contain in order to be eligible for availing the coupon.
• Email restrictions- Use this textbox for specifying all the email addresses which are allowed to use the respective coupon. Values defined here are compared to the customer's billing email address.

• Usage Limits

Screen-shot for this coupon data section is displayed below:

Fields covered here include:

• Usage limit per coupon- Use this dropdown for choosing a maximum usage limit for the coupon before it expires.
• Usage limit per user- Use this dropdown for choosing the number of times for which the coupon can be used by a user before it becomes invalid for him/her.

So with that you're done with the task of adding and managing coupons for your e-store.

Final Thoughts

If used appropriately, coupons can actually help you in boosting the visitors' count and conversion rate for your e-store. Hope the above mentioned steps would enable you to make the most of the 'Coupons' feature available with your WooCommerce e-store.