How to Create Next Order Coupons in WooCommerce?

This article has covered everything you need to know about the next order coupons like how it works, how you can enable it in your WooCommerce store and more. We will be using the WebToffee WooCommerce Smart Coupons plugin to do this.

Retaining your existing customer base is more important than you think. Rising customer acquisition costs highlight why we need to focus on retention. But if you’re struggling to keep them coming back, here’s a strategy worth trying: offering next order coupons. Let’s see how.

Next order discounts are coupons that can encourage your existing customers to make additional purchases from your store.

The key difference between regular coupons and next order discounts is that the next order coupons are applied exclusively to the cart of customers who have already made a purchase. These advanced-level coupons are a powerful tool for boosting customer retention in your WooCommerce store.

You can notify customers about the coupon by including it in the order completion email of their previous purchase. In addition to emails, you can use other communication channels to share the offer and encourage customers to redeem the coupon as early as possible.

How to Best Utilize Next Order Discounts?

One of the best ways to maximize the impact of next order discounts in your WooCommerce store is by offering personalized deals tailored to your customers’ preferences or purchase history. For example, you can recommend discounts on products they browsed or provide exclusive offers based on past purchases.

This personalized approach shows customers that your brand values them as individuals. As a result, they are more likely to return to a store to redeem their next order coupons.

WooCommerce offers only basic coupon features, which may not meet your needs when configuring next order discounts. To bridge this gap, you’ll need an advanced WooCommerce coupon plugin. When choosing a plugin, ensure it offers comprehensive features to meet all your coupon requirements.

Our recommendation is the Smart Coupons for WooCommerce plugin. It boasts a user-friendly interface and is an all-in-one solution for creating and managing coupons.

If you’d like to explore the plugin before committing, try the basic version. While it doesn’t include the next order discount feature, it gives you a glimpse of its functionality. Once you try it, you’ll see why upgrading to the premium version is worthwhile.

The Smart Coupons plugin lets you configure next-order coupons (or coupons for returning customers) in your WooCommerce store by following few simple steps.

#1: Create a New WooCommerce Coupon

• Go to Smart Coupons > Add coupon.
• Provide a coupon name, description (optional), discount type, and coupon amount.
• You can add additional configuration to the coupon as you wish.

#2: Configuring the Next Order Coupon Discounts

• Navigate to the Purchase History tab. In the purchase history tab you will see the following settings:
  • Number of orders: To enable the next order coupon, the customer must have made at least one purchase. Thus choose the number of orders equal to or greater than one from the drop-down.
  • Order date: You can define the period during with the previous purchase must have occured. This way you can restrict the coupon usage to only shoppers who bought from your WooCommerce store within that period. Let’s keep it within the last “60” days.
  • Order status: Select the order status as Completed from the drop-down. Only the prior orders that have attained this completed order status will be counted as eligible for the next order coupons.
  • Total amount: You may leave this field empty as this coupon doesn’t consider the order amount. But if you want to create a next order discount like this, say ‘Only applicable for users who have previously purchased for at least $100’ this is the option to make use of.
  • Product purchased: You may leave this field empty too. But if you want to create a next order coupon like say ‘Only applicable for users who have previously purchased a hoodie’ this is the option to make use of.
  • Exclude already awarded customers: You need to enable this checkbox to restrict the coupon from applying to customers who have already availed this coupon.

• Click on Publish to save the coupon.

Now your store is all set to offer next-order coupons to your customers. Simply offering next order coupons won’t help to bring back your customers. As I said earlier, these offers must be tempting enough to bring them back. Let’s see how to make these next order discount offers irresistible to the shoppers.

To increase the redeemability of next-order coupons, you can try the following techniques in your store with the help of the other coupon features of this plugin.

1) Create FOMO Using Limited-Time Offers

You can configure next-order coupons having a limited time period. Once past the expiry date, the coupons won’t apply. This will definitely push your customers to complete the purchase as soon as possible.

You can create limited-period offers in your store by giving a coupon start date and expiry date in the General tab in the coupon data widget.

2) Enable QR Code For Next Order Coupons

Creating next-order coupons in the form of QR codes can give you a great conversion rate. This way, your customers will not have to remember or redeem the coupon code by visiting your store. By simply scanning the QR code, the next order coupon will be applied, and they can make the checkout easily in no time.

To enable QR code coupons, you need to add another plugin to your store – URL Coupons for WooCommerce. It is an add-on for Smart Coupon Plugin for WooCommerce and is thus compatible.

Here are the steps you should be following in order to enable the QR code for the WooCommerce next order coupons.

Step 1: Create A New Coupon

Step 2: Choose A Discount Type, Discount Amount, And More

You can make use of the other features as you wish to create an advanced next order coupon.

Step 3: Configure The Next Order Coupon

Step 4: Set Up a QR Code For The Coupon

Once you Publish the coupon, you will be able to download the QR code and add it to the email for your customers. They will be able to scan it promptly and redeem the coupon.

3) Offer Free Shipping With The Coupon

At times a double deal can be a real people puller. Having recently purchased a product from the same store, customers will hesitate to make another purchase and pay for the shipping charge again. You can avoid this situation by offering free shipping along with the next order coupon.

You can enable a free shipping discount offer for your coupons by enabling the free shipping checkbox in the General tab.

These are some ways to entice your customers to redeem next-order discounts in your store. While we’ve covered everything about next-order discounts, let’s explore why focusing on retaining customers with these strategies is essential.

Here are some reasons why you should give importance to focusing on return customers for growing your business.

• Return customers are easy targets for sales: If you are running a store, you must have realized how easy it is to sell to your return customers rather than the new ones. Thus you need to revise your marketing strategy that gives importance to return customers.
• They promote your business well: You get your business promoted well by returning customers. Their reviews, word-of-mouth promotion, etc., can improve your brand value to greater heights.
• Return customers spend more money on your store: Having purchased previously from your store, returning customers would be more comfortable in spending money in your store compared to new customers. The trust they have built up from their previous purchases makes them go for enticing deals.
• Getting new customers costs you more: To find new customers for your store, you will have to spend a lot of money and effort on advertisements, promotions, etc., which is unnecessary for returning customers.

Finding the right strategy and carrying it out best is essential in taking your WooCommerce store to greater heights. Next order coupon is one such strategy that, if applied effectively, can bring huge benefits to your store.

I hope you found this article helpful in learning about next-order coupons, their benefits, how to apply them in your store, and more. Let us know your thoughts about WooCommerce’s next order coupons in the comments below.