Create a coupon

A coupon is a code a customer types at checkout to pay less, and this screen is where you make one and control how far it can go.

The four settings groups on the form are the four ways a discount goes wrong: the amount, the limits on how many times it can be used, the dates it is valid for, and whether it is switched on. Setting all four deliberately is what stops a code you sent to twenty people being used two hundred times.

1. Open Coupons, then select New Coupon.
2. Complete Coupon Details: the Code the customer will type. Uppercase letters and numbers only — a code with a space or a symbol is one customers mistype.
3. Under Discount Settings choose Percent or Fixed Amount, and enter the value.
4. Under Usage Limits set how many times the code may be used in total, and how many times one customer may use it.
5. Under Validity Period set the start and end dates. A coupon with no end date never expires, which is rarely what you want.
6. Set the status to Active, then select Create Coupon.
7. Test it: put an item in a cart and apply the code once before you send it to anyone.

Code

What the customer types at checkout

Percent

A share off — 10 means ten percent

Fixed Amount

A set amount off the order

Active

Whether the code works right now

Inactive

Kept, but rejected at checkout

A percent discount and a fixed-amount discount behave differently on a small basket. Ten percent of a twenty-unit order is two; ten units off the same order is half price. If the code is going to people who buy little, percent is the safer shape.

When a campaign ends, set the coupon Inactive rather than deleting it. The orders that used it still reference the code, and deleting the coupon leaves those orders pointing at something that no longer exists.