Ultimate Buy One Get One Free (BOGO) Guide for WooCommerce

BOGO is one of the most widely used marketing tools and one of the most successful promotional techniques, not only online, but anywhere products are sold.

Knowing how to use this strategy on your online store is crucial. It gives you an extra tool for special events or personal promotions.

This guide will explain what BOGO is, how it is used online, and the benefits it can offer your business. Additionally, it includes a detailed tutorial on how to introduce this system to WooCommerce using a simple plugin.

We’ve got a lot to talk about, so let’s start by defining BOGO.

What is a BOGO and why is it so popular in the eCommerce world

The term BOGO is well known in marketing and refers to the phrase “Buy One Get One” or “Pay One Get Two”.

During events like Black Friday, customers can take advantage of this common strategy: buy one product and get another free product.

This strategy has many advantages. We will discuss them later. For now, we can attribute some of the tool’s success to its ease of use.

Not only is it easy for the seller to create this strategy with a simple click, but it is also easy for the customer to understand how it works. The same can be said for similar techniques, such as 3×2. Writing this multiplication makes it clear to the customer that they can get three products at a discounted price of two.

This approach succeeds because it is easy to use and understand. Additionally, it offers several benefits to your WooCommerce store. Let’s explore these benefits.

What are the benefits of using a BOGO strategy for your eCommerce business

There are many benefits to this type of discount, so let’s explore some of them together:

• Smart inventory management – Products that remain in the stock for long periods of time are generally harder to sell. Offering a free deal for unsold products can help you make room quickly and recoup the investment that would otherwise be lost.
• Increases sales – BOGO is one of the most successful tools for increasing immediate sales and attracting new customers due to its reputation. It may seem obvious that the ultimate goal of most promotional strategies is to sell more products.
• Loyalty and appreciation – Customers love these types of promotions, resulting in a better long-term relationship and a higher likelihood of repeat and repeat purchases by offering any free or discounted product.
• Immediate effects – Because it is easy to understand, it works faster than other techniques, which means you will start seeing results sooner.

There are many advantages to using it in WooCommerce. Let’s explore how it works.

How to create BOGO deals on WooCommerce

If you’re wondering how to implement the Buy One Get One Free deal in WooCommerce, luckily the answer is simple: by using a single plugin.

WooCommerce has its coupon code feature for offering promotions that customers can redeem in their orders. However, this set of rules is rather basic, so you will need more advanced solutions.

Fortunately, you can introduce the BOGO technique, as well as other promotions like 3×2, 50% off on the second product, and free shipping on specific items, by using advanced coupons plugin and special promotion rules like YITH WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing and Discounts.

In the next point, we will provide a step-by-step guide on how to offer BOGO deals on your website.

BOGO Tutorial: YITH WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing

To begin, install and activate the plugin. We won’t cover this process in detail since it’s similar to other plugins.

In this guide, we will create a BOGO promotion for a specific product named “Coffee BOGO – Buy 1 Get 1”, which we previously created as a WooCommerce product.

After installing the plugin, navigate to YITH > Dynamic Pricing and Discounts to access the control panel:

The plugin has several tabs that allow you to customize its settings or create exclusion lists of products that the plugin will not affect. However, the first tab, “Dynamic Rules”, is the most important one.

To create the BOGO deal, click on “Add Rule” at the top. This will take you to the screen shown below:

The plugin provides templates for popular promotions, which can be easily added with one click. If the desired template is not available, a new rule can be created from scratch by selecting an option on the right.

Luckily for us, there is a template: the second option is actually BOGO. Click on it and you can start customizing your promotion.

In this first part, you can choose a name for the rule to identify it from others and set its priority. Lower priority numbers indicate earlier application relative to other rules you create later.

In the “Configuration” rule of the second section, you can select the products on which the BOGO promotion will be applied. You have the option to apply it to all products in the store or only to specific products, categories, or product tags.

For each of the last three scenarios, a field will appear where you can indicate which discount rules to apply. In this example, we will select the previously created product, choose “Certain Products”, and search for the specific product by typing the first few letters of its name.

Most of our work is done, but there are additional settings available by scrolling down. For instance, under the “Rule Application” tab, you can select which users to display this product to and when to begin the promotion:

Finally, you’ll find a field where you can enter text that will automatically appear in all products where we apply this promotion, so you don’t have to customize each one.

In our case, we chose the phrase “Buy one of this product and get another one for free!”

Here’s the final product:

The red text and description were added to the product page, while the smaller text at the bottom was included by the plugin. We displayed the different types of text to emphasize the importance of highlighting the promotion.

When a product is added to the cart, another product will be automatically added as a free offer.

The process is fast and easy to use for both you and your clients, maximizing its effectiveness.

Thanks to the plugin, you can create other promotions, so feel free to experiment with the best strategy for your store.

Maximize the power of your BOGO offers

We have seen how this technique can be used effectively for any WooCommerce store. Now, let’s explore some tips to maximize its potential.

• Due to the urgency – To secure a sale, it is effective to set some kind of limit, such as a deadline or until the supply runs out. This is known as the Scarcity Principle, which is one of the most powerful and exploited psychological processes.
• Announce the promotion – Your customers need to know about the best discount to make sure they want to use it. Make sure it’s visible on the product sales page and the home page or even on the checkout page with special banners.
• Be clear – Although it is known as a technique, some customers may not understand what they need to do (do they need to add two products? Will one be automatically added? Will one be refunded?), so be sure to explain quickly but clearly how the promotion works.
• Choose what you want to use it for – There are many situations in which the BOGO coupon can be used. It can be applied during Black Friday, as a reward in a loyalty program, or exclusively for past customers. Try it out and analyze the results to draw your conclusions.
• Promote it – If you use social media to communicate with your customers or potential customers, this will help you to get the most out of this tool.

And, in general, keep an eye on the results and learn from your customers’ behavior to understand where and when to introduce effective BOGO discounts.

Conclusion

The BOGO technique is one of the most popular online. It may seem advanced, but it only takes a few clicks to successfully apply it to your WooCommerce store.

Increase your sales, manage your inventory effectively, satisfy your customers, and attract new ones in one fell swoop – that’s the power of the BOGO strategy.