WooCommerce discount codes – how to create and use them
Discount codes are great way to encourage new online store customers to tryout your products. Most of the e-commerce platforms have tools to create and manage discount codes, and WooCommerce is no exception.
Discount codes in WooCommerce are called coupons. You can create any amount of coupons, and set them up as you like – there are loads of configuration options out of the box. Today I’ll show you how to start using coupons (discount codes) in your own WooCommerce store:
Let’s start with creating your first discount code in your WooCommerce store.
How to create coupons (discount codes) in WooCommerce
You don’t need any third party plugins to start using coupons in WooCommerce – all the tools for creating discount codes can be found in Marketing >> Coupons section. Once you get there click Create your first coupon or Add coupon button.
First thing you need is to make up an actual coupon name. You can use any letters and numbers for coupon names, or click Generate coupon code button to generate a random coupon name automatically.
you may also add a coupon description. It won’t be shown for customers – it’s just for you to remember why you created the coupon and how it’s different from other coupons you create in future.
Now we can get to actual discount code settings. In General tab you can select discount type and coupon amount:
percentage discount allows you to set specific amount from cart (for example -30% off)
fixed cart discount lets you descrease cart total by specified number (like $20.00 off)
fixed product discount only sets discount for specified products
At the same tab you can also allow free shipping if coupon is used (it only works if you have Free shipping in WooCommerce settings) and coupon expiry date (coupon only works until selected date).
Usage restrictions tab lets you set restictions for discount code usage in WooCommerce. They are not necessary for a basic coupon but there are some handy tools that might be useful:
Minimum spend – from which amount of Cart total coupon starts working
Maximum spend – up to which amount of Cart total coupon is active
Individual use only allows using one coupon at a time
Exclude sale items does not let customers use discount code if product is already on sale
Products lets you restrict coupon usage only for selected products
Exclude products lets you restirct coupon usage for all but excluded product you select.
Product categories lets you allow coupon usage only for specified product categories
Exclude categories does the opposite – restricts coupon usage for specified product categories
Allowed emails let you only select specific customer emails – no other customer will be able to use the discount code.
Finally – Usage limits tab:
Usage limit per coupon lets you limit how many time dicount code can be used in your store.
Usage limit per user lets you limit how many times the same customer can use the coupon.
Once you set the coupon amount, and (optionally) add coupon restrictions then the coupon code is ready to use.
Where customer can add coupon code in WooCommerce
Your WooCommerce store customers can add coupon code in Cart page. Here’s the example of coupon named imakeitwork – customer can enter it to coupon field, hit Apply coupon, and then discount shows up in Cart totals.
There is no difference if customer enters coupon name as lowercase, uppercase or mixed – coupon will be applied anyway.
Where store administrators can see if discount codes were used or not
There are two ways to see if coupon was used in WooCommerce orders.
First one – open any order, and look at the totals. if the coupon was used you’ll see it’s code and the amount that was applied to the order because of the coupon.
The other way to see if coupon was used is to go to Marketing >> Coupons in WordPress menu.
Here you’ll see all the discount codes (coupons) available in your store including their usage data (column Usage / Limit). In the exaple you see that coupon was already used once out of 5 times.
