Set up Smart Coupons for WooCommerce

Smart Coupon for WooCommerce is an add-on plugin, tailor-made to meet varied coupon specific functionalities. With the plugin, you can:

• Issue coupons based on the shipping method, payment method, user roles and country
• Offer BOGO (Buy X Get Y) discounts
• Bulk generate coupons
• Import coupons
• Create and manage Store Credits
• Signup coupons
• Abandoned coupons and many more.

• First of all, install and activate the plugin.
• From your WordPress dashboard, go to the Smart Coupons > Coupons.

Smart Coupon offers the following features under the Smart coupons menu:

• All coupons
• Additional options under Coupon data
• Coupon category
• Bulk generate
• Import coupons
• Store credit
• Abandoned cart
• Signup coupons
• General settings

The Add coupon window consists of two sections Add new coupon and associated Coupon data.

Create a new coupon by selecting Add Coupon.

In order to create a new coupon, enter the following fields:

• Coupon code – Enter or generate a code used by the customer to apply the coupon. It must be unique as it is used as an identifier.
• Description (optional) — Info about the coupon, e.g., Dates in effect, promotion, compensation, ticket number. Used for internal use.

Alternatively, the plugin allows you to Duplicate an existing coupon which will clone an exact copy of the chosen coupon. You can also edit an existing coupon.

Under Coupon Data, you will find the following sections: General, Usage Restriction, Usage Limits, Checkout Options, Giveaway Products and Purchase history.

General

• Discount type – Select the required discount types from the drop-down.
  • Percentage discounts: Select percentage discounts to offer discounts for selected products only. For example, if the cart contains three (3) t-shirts at $30 each = $90, a coupon for 10% off applies a discount of $9.
  • Fixed cart discount: Select a fixed cart discount to offer a discount for the entire cart. For example, if the cart contains three (3) t-shirts at $30 each = $90, a coupon for $10 off gives a discount of $10.
  • Fixed product discount: Select a fixed product discount to offer a fixed total discount for selected products only. The customer receives a set amount of discount per item. For example, three (3) t-shirts at $30 each with a coupon for $10 off apply a discount of $30.
  • Store credits: It allows shop owners to create store credit coupons manually from the back end. Unlike normal coupons, a store credit can be redeemed multiple times until its amount is exhausted. You can also restrict store credits by product, category, coupon validity, etc.
  • BOGO-Buy X get Y offers: The enhanced BOGO discounts offer varied quantity or price based discounts such as buy x and get the same product/any product from store/specific product from store/product from a specific category, etc.
• Coupon amount – Fixed value or percentage, depending on the discount type you choose. Entered without a currency unit or a percent sign, e.g., Enter ’10’ for £10 or 10%.
• Allow free shipping – Removes shipping costs on coupon redemption. Enable Free Shipping from WooCommerce settings.
• Coupon expiry date – Set an expiry date for the coupon. Expiry happens at 12:00 am or 00:00 on the date chosen. If you want a coupon to be valid through Christmas Day but invalid the moment Christmas is over, set the expiration date to YYYY-12-26 as it will expire on YYYY-12-26 at 00:00. It uses your site’s time zone setting at Settings > General > Timezone in WordPress.
• Coupon start date: Set a start date on which the coupon must be active.
• Apply coupon automatically: Automatically applies coupons on checkout if the criteria are met.
• Make coupons available in –  Lists all available coupons on the MyAccount page, Cart, and/or Checkout.

Minimum spend – This allows you to set the minimum subtotal needed to use the coupon.  Note: The sum total of the cart subtotal+tax is used to determine the minimum amount.

Maximum spend – This allows you to set the maximum subtotal allowed when using the coupon.

Individual use only – Check this box to not use coupons in conjunction with other coupons.

Coupons can be used with: Input one or more coupon codes to use along with a created coupon.

Coupons can’t be used with: Configure the list of coupons that cannot be redeemed together with the specified.

Exclude sale items –Check this box if the coupon should not apply to items on sale. Per-item coupons will only work if the item is not on sale. Per-cart coupons will only work if there are items in the cart that are not on sale.

Product/Category restriction: Enable to apply coupons only if the cart satisfies the product or category restrictions.

Individual quantity restriction: Enable to set minimum and maximum quantity restrictions for individual product/category instead of the entire cart. If disabled, then the Minimum quantity of matching products will be considered.

Any from below selection: Applies coupon if any of the products from below is available in the cart.

All from below selection: Applies coupon if the cart contains all of the listed products.

Products: Products that the coupon will be applied to or that need to be in the cart in order for the discount to be applied by satisfying the min and max quantity restrictions.

Exclude products: Products that the coupon will not be applied to or that cannot be in the cart in order for the discount to be applied. This will not be applicable for percentage and fixed product discount.

Any from below selection: Applies coupon if the eligible quantity of products from any of the below selected categories are available in the cart.

All from below selection: Applies coupon if the cart contains the eligible quantity of products from all of the below-listed categories.

Product categories: Product categories that the coupon will be applied to or that need to be in the cart in order for the discount to be applied by satisfying the min and max quantity restrictions.

Exclude categories: Product categories that the coupon will not be applied to or that cannot be in the cart in order for the discount to be applied. This will not be applicable for percentage and fixed product discounts.

Quantity or subtotal based restriction for all items in the cart:

Minimum quantity of matching products: Minimum quantity of the products that match the given product or category restrictions. If no product or category restrictions are specified, then the total number of products is used.

Maximum quantity of matching products: Maximum quantity of the products that match the given product or category restrictions. If no product or category restrictions are specified, then the total number of products is used.

Minimum subtotal of matching products: Minimum price subtotal of the products that match the given product or category restrictions.

Maximum subtotal of matching products: Maximum price subtotal of the products that match the given product or category restrictions.

Allowed Emails/Email restrictionsWhitelistof billing emails to check against when an order is placed. Separate email addresses with commas. You can also use an asterisk (*) to match parts of an email. For example “*@gmail.com” would match all Gmail addresses.

• Usage limit per coupon – Restricts the coupon usage to the specified count.
• Usage limit per user – Restricts the coupon usage to the specified count per user.

On selecting the discount type as ‘Percentage discount’, two additional usage limits options populate:

• Limit usage to X items – If left blank, the coupon applies to all qualifying items in the cart. The maximum number of individual items the coupon can apply to when using product discounts.
• Maximum discount vaue – Use this option to set a cap on the discount value, especially for percentage discounts, e.g, you may provide a 50% discount coupon for a product but with a maximum discount of up to $100.

• Shipping Methods: The coupon will be applicable only if the shipping methods match any of the entries selected here.
• Payment Methods: The coupon will be applicable only if the payment method applied during checkout matches any of the entries listed here.
• Applicable Roles: The coupon will be applicable if the customer belongs to any of the roles listed in this field.
• Restrict by Country: Restrict the usage of the coupon on the basis of billing address or shipping address.
• Country: Select the location from the list for restricting the coupon usage.

Under the Giveaway products tab, choose the product or category that you wish to give on offer. It can be the same product in the cart, any product from the store or any product from the same or specific category and so on.

You can also provide partial discounts on the free products.

Customer gets: Adds free product/s to the customer’s cart on applying the coupon based on the following selection.

• Specific product
• Any product from a specific category
• Any product in store
• Same product as in the cart
• Any product from the same category as in the cart

To learn more about how to offer various giveaways, please refer to this article.

Apply tax only on discounted value: Enable this option to calculate the tax only on the discounted value, e.g, If you are providing a discount of $10 on a $100 product, enabling this option will calculate tax only on $90, which is the product giveaway price (sale price).

Smart coupon for WooCommerce plugin helps you to generate a coupon for returning customers who have made ‘n’ successful purchases.

Configure the nth-order coupon from the purchase history tab of the coupon panel. You can explicitly specify to which order the coupon must be provided with options like ‘equal to’ or ‘greater than or equal to’.

• Number of orders: Select the order statuses to apply the coupon.
• Order status: Select one or multiple order statuses to apply the coupon.
• Total amount: Input the aggregate order amount to apply the coupon.
• Exclude customers already awarded: Check to exclude the coupon from applying to customers already rewarded.

The purchase history tab consists of the following options to configure an nth order coupon.

• Number of orders: Select an option as ‘equal to’ or ‘greater than or equal to’ along with an order count to which the coupon must be applied.

Order Status: Select the order statuses from the drop-down to which the coupon can be applied. If left blank, then the coupon will be made applicable to all the order statuses.

Total Amount: Enter the aggregate order amount to which the coupon can be applied. If left blank, then the coupon can be redeemed without any amount constraints.

Exclude customers already awarded: On checking this checkbox, the customer will be availed to redeem the coupon only ones.

The settings tab consists of three categories as Style, General, and Coupon Banner.

Choose from pre-defined coupon designs, and choose background color, text & border color (as per your theme’s color scheme) included in the Select Style button. Provision to customize the style of an active coupon, used coupon, and expired coupon. Alternatively, choose a style from among the pre-defined coupon styles.

• Coupon Visibility: Controls the visibility of the coupon types in concerned pages. It has two checkboxes:
  • Show used coupon under My Account: Tick this to show used coupon under My Account
  • Show Expired coupons under My Account: Tick this to show expired coupons under My Account
• Bulk Generate: Set the length of the coupon code to automatically generate coupons excluding prefix and/or suffix. The default length of the auto-generated coupon code is 12.
• Gift coupon on product purchase: Emails gift coupon to recepients based on the selected order statuses.
• URL Coupon: With URL Coupons, you can add a unique URL to any coupon in your e-commerce store. Automatically applies coupon discount with the underlying configuration on visisting the URL. That is, allow a discount, giveaway free product whatever the case may be. You can implement the URL coupon by using the following syntax: <site_url>/?wt_coupon=<coupon_code>
  For example, to implement a URL coupon in the cart page of a website www.webtoffee.com with the coupon code FLAT30, specify the URL coupon in the following format:https://www.webtoffee.com/cart/?wt_coupon=flat30

Smart Coupon for WooCommerce-Settings-General tab

Use the configuration panel to style your coupon banner. You can also key in the shortcode manually within your pages to display/announce the discounts likewise. Or use the option within the panel so that we can inject it into the respective pages.

Modify a banner item from the customize panel. Enable/disable an item from the banner by using the Toggle buttons.

How to use coupon banner shortcode?

You can use shortcodes to set up a coupon banner on your website. Insert a shortcode manually into any of your pages or automatically by using the configuration option “Inject coupons”. Either way will ensure a coupon banner announcing the offer to your visitors.

To achieve this, simply place the shortcode in the prescribed format [wt_smart_coupon_banner coupon_id=xxx] within the respective page to display the default coupon banner. coupon_id is the post id of the coupon(created prior via Woocommerce->Coupons).

Alternatively, you can pass specific arguments/parameters along with the shortcode to override the default coupon banner appearance. You can use predefined arguments with shortcodes as shown below:

Example:

• Shortcode for default banner layout
  [wt_smart_coupon_banner coupon_id=2828]
  Displays the banner for the coupon id 2828 with the default coupon specifications.

• Shortcode with arguments
  [wt_smart_coupon_banner coupon_id=4545 banner_type=”widget” title=”End of Season Sale” description=”Avail 50%discount” position=”bottom_right” bg_color=”#8224e3″ ]
  

The above shortcode will set the appearance type as a widget with title, description, positioned to bottom right, and background color as #8224e3 for a coupon with ID 4545.

Note: The default style of the banner will be overridden with the style of the arguments specified in the shortcodes.

Refer to know more about how a custom coupon banner with countdown timer in WooCommerce is created.

Group coupons based on category by using the Coupon category option.

To add a new/custom category enter the following details.

• Name: Key in an appropriate name for the coupon category.
• Slug: The “slug” is the URL-friendly version of the name and it will be automatically created. However, it is also possible to add a custom slug.
• Parent category: Assign a parent category if required.
• Description: Type the description for the coupon category in the field provided.
• Finally, click on Add new category button to update.

Generates coupons in bulk matching the criteria set from the Coupon data section. The generated coupons can be: added to the store, exported as a CSV or emailed to the recipient directly.

• Add to store: Adds the generated coupons to the store.
• Export as CSV: Exports the generated coupons into a CSV file for future use.
• Email recipient: Emails the respective coupons to the recipients after adding them to the store. This works in combination with the Allowed email option available under usage restriction.

Once the settings are in place, assign a prefix and suffix for the coupon, if required. The coupon_code is a random unique alphanumeric character of length 12. Click on the Generate Coupon button to issue coupons as per the pre-defined configurations.

If one or more emails are specified in the allowed emails option, then the plugin generates only enough coupons depending on whichever is the lowest value, either the coupon number or the number of emails.

For instance, consider the below scenario:

• Restrict to only two emails in the Allowed Email field of the User Restriction section as shown above.
• Enter 10 in the number of coupons to generate field

In this case, instead of 10 coupons, only two coupons will be generated and sent to the respective email ids. Likewise, if 2 coupons are inserted and it is restricted to 10 emails: then, only two coupons will be generated and assigned to the first two email ids.

For a clean import, the CSV must include the header and adhere to the format as indicated in our sample file. Columns post_title and discount_type are mandatory for the import. Duplicate coupons will be skipped during import.

1. Choose a CSV file from your system.
2. You can also email coupons to concerned recipients on import by selecting the checkbox. Any email addresses you entered will receive coupons once coupons are imported.
3. Click on the Upload file button. On uploading, you will  be redirected to the mapping window as shown below:

Click on Import button, the coupons will be imported into your store.

Smart coupon offers a comprehensive store credit functionality where the customers can easily purchase store credit, email it as a gift card for friends or use it for themselves. Store credits can be used in combination with other coupons even for multiple purchases until the value specified is exhausted or when the coupon’s life expires.

Alternatively, the plugin also allows the store owner to email personal store credit vouchers directly to customers using the Email Credit option.

Checkout our tutorial on Store Credit to know more on it.

The store credit setup consists of fields to specify the maximum and minimum range of store credit vouchers that can be purchased, select order status for which the vouchers have to be sent and provision to define the format of the store credit vouchers.

The setup consists of the following fields:

• Extended Store Credit: The extended model allows your customers to choose a template from the available options. If enabled the customers will get to choose a gifting template from the available options on the product page. This template will also be used for email. The store credit product preview will be as shown below:

The store credit email preview will be as shown below:

• Manage tax: Enabling this option discounts the credit prior to calculating the tax. The tax is calculated on discounted value instead of actual value. For eg, if the order value is $110 and you apply a store credit of value $100, the tax will be applicable only on $10(order total after discount).
• Purchase Store Credit
  • Associate a product: A zero priced product has to be selected from the available list.
  • Credit purchase options: Signifies purchase options for store credit. Predefined allows the admin to set specific amounts. Custom allows the customer to enter an amount of choice.
  • Set amount: Specify the predefined denomination values that must appear at the user end while purchasing store credit.
  • Minimum credit purchase: Enter a minimum value of the store credit that can be purchased using the associated product.
  • Maximum credit purchase: Enter the maximum value of the store credit that can be purchased using the associated product.
    While purchasing the store credit the minimum value and the maximum value by which the voucher can be purchased will be displayed at the front end of your store as seen in the preview.

• Email store credit on order status: Purchased store credit will be emailed only for the selected order status as either completed or processed.

Email Store Credit helps in managing the refunds for the order returns of your store. Using email credit, the store owner can directly send the store credit voucher via email to specific clients deserving special discounts.

Email credit consists of:

• Email Address: Key in the email addresses of the recipients in this field to send store credits individually.
• Credit Amount: Enter the store credit amount in this field.
• Description: Optionally a message can be included while emailing the voucher to the customer. You will also get the preview of the mail here.
• Individual use only: Make the store credit voucher to not use in conjunction with other coupons by enabling the option.

Once the above fields are filled in, click on send to mail the store credit vouchers to specified recipients.

The Action Coupon tab is subdivided into two as Signup Coupon and Cart Abandonment Coupons.

A signup coupon creates and assigns coupons to customers automatically upon signup. In order to set up a signup coupon you will have to create a master coupon with required properties and then associate it to behave as a signup coupon.

The signup coupon window consists of the following options:

• Enable signup coupon: Enable the option to create and assign coupons to customers automatically upon signup.
• Associate a master coupon: The signup coupon will be created based on the underlying master coupon. The coupon configuration (discount percentage and other related rules) will be created based on the selected master coupon.
• Use the master coupon code as-is: When enabled the coupon code will be the same as the master coupon code. Upon successful signup, the email ids of the corresponding users will be added to ‘Allowed emails’ under the Usage Restriction section of the master coupon. When unchecked a new coupon code will be generated for every new signup. These coupons will follow the same configuration as the master coupon, the difference being a unique coupon code. The coupon code can be formatted as per the prefix/suffix/length options. If not specified it will take the format as per the General Settings.

On signing up successfully, the customer will be notified with an email as shown below:

Smart coupon for WooCommerce plugin helps you to create and assign coupons to customers automatically upon cart/checkout abandonment. After a definite idle time upon which the cart is abandoned, mail notification will be sent to the concerned customer along with the coupon.

To initiate a cart/checkout abandonment coupon, configure in the following manner;

• Enable abandonment coupon: Enable the option to create and assign coupons to customers automatically upon cart/checkout abandonment.
• Associate a master coupon: The abandonment coupon will be created based on the underlying master coupon. The coupon configuration (discount percentage and other related rules) will be created based on the selected master coupon.
• Idle time: Specify the minimum time (in mins) that the item/s should remain in cart for the customer to be eligible for the coupon.
• Email coupon interval: Specify the duration (in mins) after which the coupon will be mailed to the eligible customers.
• Use the master coupon code as-is: When enabled the coupon code will be the same as the master coupon code. The email ids of the eligible customers will be added to ‘Allowed emails’ under the Usage Restriction section of the master coupon. When unchecked a new coupon code will be generated for every eligible customer. These coupons will follow the same configuration as the master coupon, the difference being a unique coupon code. The coupon code can be formatted as per the prefix/suffix/length options. If not specified it will take the format as per the General Settings.

On abandoning the cart/checkout with the specified idle time, the customer will be notified with an email along with the coupon as shown below:

Smart Coupon gives a provision to view the currently active coupons, used, as well as expired coupons from the MyAccount, Cart and/or Checkout sections as shown below.

• Coupon view from My Account

• Coupon view from Cart

• Coupon view from Checkout

The user can simply click on an active coupon to redeem it from MyAccount, Cart or from Checkout.

• How to Setup URL Coupons for WooCommerce