Promotional strategies in all their forms and uses are essential to any eCommerce store. It’s no wonder that every type of store, physical or online, offers different discounts on their products — they do it because these promotions are effective.
And, of course, WooCommerce incorporates this feature although it is rather limited. Throughout this article, we’ll explore the types of discounts you can create in WooCommerce and which plugins you can use to introduce advanced promotional functionalities into your store.
By the end of the article, you’ll know how to create all the most common types of discounts in just a few clicks.
Table of contents
Types of Discounts Available in WooCommerce
Let’s start by looking at what WooCommerce allows you to do. When we talk about traditional discounts on this platform, we’re usually talking about two specific functions.
The first one is the option you have when creating or editing a product to set a regular price and a sale price:
This way, you can apply a real discount on the product and also give the illusion of a discounted price by setting a higher regular price. These two prices will be displayed together on the product page, with the regular price crossed out and the sale price as the actual price.
Another way you can offer discounts in WooCommerce is through discount codes. By going to Marketing > Coupons, you can create as many as you like:
By clicking on “Add coupon,” you’ll be directed to the creation page where you can configure the coupon:
Here, you can decide:
- The discount type – Choosing between a percentage discount (e.g. 10% off the cart value), fixed cart discount (e.g. $5 off the cart value), or fixed product discount (e.g. $5 off a specific product in the cart).
- If the coupon grants free shipping or not.
- Who can use it.
- How many times it can be used.
- After how long this discount is no longer valid.
- On which products it can be used.
While this feature is undoubtedly very useful for your business, it is still limited. Sure, you can create an advertising campaign offering a promotional code to attract customers, but there are many promotional strategies that require a more dynamic system to work. Moreover, in this case, you will always have to act as an intermediary since you will have to personally provide the discount code.
In general, this is a great system for refunds or very simple advertising campaigns, but you may want something more advanced.
Why Are Discounts Important for a Business?
It’s not necessarily required to conduct in-depth market analysis to understand how important promotions are for customers, we can simply look back to our personal experience.
Remember that 93% of customers will use a promotion or discount code throughout the year, that’s how sought after and appreciated this feature is to them.
Offering discounts on both products and shipping can have a huge impact on the success of your business: not only can the chance of closing a sale skyrocket by offering free shipping (we’re talking about four or five times the normal rate), but customers are also willing to spend more if that will get them a discount or free shipping.
Most promotional techniques rely on price manipulation. Think of events like Black Friday and the impact it has on sales for stores worldwide.
So let’s see what plugin you can use to give your store an edge and what types of promotions you can create.
Discounts and Discount Rules in WooCommerce
The plugin we’ll talk about today is YITH WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing & Discounts, which allows you to create all kinds of pricing rules based on your customers’ behavior or your own preferences. Just by clicking on “Add Rule” after you install and activate the plugin, you’ll see all the discount rules you can create with it:
Let’s quickly go through the various types of discounts you can create.
3×2 Promotion
Once you know how to create this promotion, you’ll be able to create all its variants (as we’ll see later):
As the name suggests, this promotion involves offering the customer 3 items for the price of 2. Once you click on the option, you’ll see how you can achieve this result with the plugin settings.
In this case, it’s specified that upon purchasing 3 products, the customer gets a 100% discount on one of them. Everything will happen automatically, and you can decide which products to apply this rule to.
BOGO Promotion
This is one of the most popular promotions of all time, where the customer is given one free product when purchasing another (literally Buy One Get One).
In this case, it’s just a matter of clicking on the specific option and choosing which products to apply this promotion to.
Here’s an interesting fact: it has been proved that offering a BOGO deal is much more effective than offering a 50% discount, despite being the same thing. This demonstrates how the psychological factor and the customer’s perception can have a huge impact on sales.
2×1 Promotion
This is a variation of the 3×2 promotion, in which the customer is required to buy only two products to get one of them for free:
As you can see, you just need to change one value to get all the variations you want of this rule.
50% Off on the Second Product Promotion
Using the same rules we saw earlier, you can offer different discount percentages:
As you can see, the rule is identical to the 2×1, but the discount percentage offered is just 50%, so the second product is not free but offered at half price.
Black Friday Promotions
As we mentioned earlier, taking advantage of events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, summer sales, etc., can be a great way to boost your sales (and solve overstock problems if you have them). While you could create a discount code to be used at checkout, this approach comes with a series of issues: adding an extra step to the purchase process can reduce sales and many customers might miss out on this opportunity.
It’s better to apply a percentage discount directly in your shop so customers can see it applied to the catalog. So, choose the right option:
In this case, you can choose the products or categories of products to apply the rule to (you can offer different discounts for different products) and select the type of discount to apply, for example, a 10% discount on all products.
Quantity Discount
This one is essential for stores that offer large quantities of products, such as wholesale shops and B2B market models. With this rule, you can offer a price discount based on the quantity of a specific product added to the cart:
As you can see in our example above, we’re offering:
- A 10% discount from 1 to 10 products
- A 15% discount from 11 to 20 products
- A 20% discount from 21 to 30 products
Of course, you have full control over which products to include and what price ranges to offer.
Role Based Discount
This is also an excellent option, for example, if you have VIP customers or if you want to create a form of club within your store. By choosing this rule, you can offer a discount based on the user’s role:
This is a very common way to encourage customers to register on the site, thus increasing long-term sales.
Buy X Get Y for Free Promotion
Similar to the BOGO rule, in this case, if the customer buys a specific product, “X,” they are offered another product, “Y,” as a gift:
There are countless promotional strategies this technique can be used for, for example, product “Y” can be a product of your choice that cannot be purchased otherwise or a product you’re trying to clear from your inventory while simultaneously adding value to another item for sale.
This type of promotion is possible thanks to the option at the bottom, “Apply discount to a different product or category.”
Free Product Promotion
Similar to the previous one, a specific product is offered for free but in this case, it’s based on the customer’s order:
This is also a very common type of promotion. Think of all the ways you can use it: you can offer a calendar after a certain amount spent or an exclusive product as a gift.
Cart Promotion
One of the most classic promotions of all time: a percentage or fixed price discount on the cart value, just like the coupons offered by WooCommerce but applied dynamically when the customer is at the checkout:
In this case, you also have full control over the plugin’s behavior. For example, you can choose whether to apply the discount always or only when certain conditions are met.
Free Shipping
This has to be one of the most powerful tools out there nowadays (and one of the reasons behind Amazon’s huge success). With YITH WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing & Discounts, you can offer free shipping based on specific conditions, like reaching a specific spent threshold:
By studying the average spending of your customers and offering free shipping for a higher value, you can increase the AOV (Average Order Value), one of the most determining factors for the economic success of your eCommerce store.
Once the required condition is met, free shipping will be offered:
Last Deal
Last but not least, this classic promotion takes advantage of the Scarcity Principle: by creating a sense of urgency in customers, it’s easier to push them to buy. In this case, you can offer a “Last Minute” deal on certain products and apply a discount:
What’s shown above is obviously just one example, but there are thousands of ways you can use this marketing technique.
Best Practices for Applying Discounts in WooCommerce
The world of discounts is vast and there are thousands of ways to perfect their use. Here are some tips to keep in mind:
- Consider your profit margin – While discounts are a phenomenal tool, they should also be used with some self-control.
- Take advantage of occasional events – Events like Black Friday can be a huge source of income, often exceeding the entire month’s revenue. In these cases, in addition to creating a discount rule, make sure to inform your customers about the promotions you’re offering with themed graphics and by talking about them on social media. Discounts are effective as long as customers are aware of them.
- Analyze your audience’s behavior – Check where carts are abandoned, which products are most popular, and listen to your customers’ feedback. For example, if you notice carts are abandoned at checkout, it might be due to additional costs. If so, you can consider offering free shipping and telling customers how to get it.
- Automate the process – While discount codes have their place (like in email marketing or certain promotional campaigns), generally, the fewer actions you require from customers, the easier it is for them to go through with the order.
- Watch the results – Don’t be afraid to change your promotions if you see things aren’t going as planned, but at the same time, be careful not to betray your customers’ trust: if you’ve promised a 10% discount for 3 days, removing it earlier can hurt your image and your sales.
FAQ
- Is it possible to apply automatic discounts without using coupons?Yes, the plugin YITH WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing & Discounts allows for dynamic and automated price management based on discount rules created by the seller.
- How can I set up discounts based on the quantity of products in the cart?With YITH WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing & Discounts, you can create a quantity table and offer different discounts based on the quantity of the same product added to the cart. You can also create rules like 3×2 or BOGO with a few clicks.
- Can I offer different discounts based on the user role on WooCommerce?Yes, the user role-based discount is one of the templates included in the plugin, you can activate it with just one click.
- Is it possible to apply discounts to specific product categories?Yes, the plugin allows you to apply discounts to both individual products and entire categories.
- How can I exclude certain products from discount rules?You can use exclusion lists or specify the products on which the rules will be applied.
- How can I monitor the impact of discount rules on my sales?There are numerous factors to consider when evaluating the success of a business strategy: number of sales, average cart value, which items are being sold, and much more. Dynamic Pricing allows you to adjust the rules at any time, so you can readapt the site when needed.
- Is it possible to configure cumulative discounts on WooCommerce?Both the classic coupons of WooCommerce and the advanced rules of YITH WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing & Discounts allow you to create discounts that are applied only when a certain cart value is reached.
- How can I disable or modify an existing discount rule?Rules can be modified or disabled with a single click so you can adapt your promotional strategy based on the results you’re getting.
- How can I set up discounts for multiple purchases of the same product?YITH WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing & Discounts gives you perfect control over product-related promotions, with the ability to create different types of promotions based on the number of items purchased (such as 3×2, 2×1, BOGO, quantity discounts, and more).
Conclusion
The discounts and promotions world is huge, don’t take the risk of taking it lightly. In many cases, the line between a successful store and an unpopular one lies in the promotions that are offered in them.
Don’t settle for just the tip of the iceberg offered by the basic settings of WooCommerce, choose Dynamic Pricing to have all the tools you need to manage advanced discount rules.