Smart Coupons for WooCommerce – User Guide

Here you can find the complete documentation of the Smart Coupons for WooCommerce plugin. With the help of this documentation, you can learn how to create a coupon having a variety of combinations of features, usage restrictions, etc.

Smart Coupons for WooCommerce plugin is an advanced version of the default WooCommerce coupon section. It offers you the following features.

• Allow coupons based on the shipping method, payment method, or roles selected by the users.
• Coupons based on matching product rules
• Offer BOGO (Buy one, get one) deals
• Offer give away products
• Option to apply coupons automatically
• Supports URL coupons
• Schedule coupon activation

You can install the plugin either from the WordPress plugin directory or as a zip downloaded from the WordPress.org website. You can learn more about the installation procedure using the article How to Install a Free Plugin from WordPress.

To get started with the plugin, go to the Marketing tab in your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Coupons.

To create a coupon using the plugin, click on the Add Coupon button from Marketing > Coupons or navigate to Smart Coupons > Add Coupon from the WordPress dashboard

In the opening window, you can either key in a custom coupon code or generate a coupon code by clicking the button Generate coupon code. Provide a description of the coupon in the next field, if you want. Note that the description will be visible to the customers, so avoid shorthand and abbreviations.

Now you can start filling in all the coupon data required for creating the coupon. The Coupon data widget houses 5 different tabs.

• Discount type – You can choose from three discount types; Percentage, Fixed cart, and Fixed product discounts.
  • Percentage discount – The value you enter here will be considered as a discount in percentage form. For instance, if you enter 40, a 40% discount will be applied on the cart subtotal.
  • Fixed cart discount – Provide the net discount amount (in your chosen currency) that you will be offering the customers purchasing a few selected items that you have specified (You can choose the items in the Usage restriction section). For example, if you add $20 as the fixed discount amount, then a net total of $20 will be discounted from your cart subtotal.
  • Fixed product discount – The discount amount you enter here will only be applicable to a fixed product in the cart. (you can choose the items in the Usage restriction section).
  • BOGO (Buy X Get X/Y offer): Select BOGO if you want to set up WooCommerce discount coupons of the form Buy X Get Y for full or partial discount. For example: Buy 2, Get 1 free, Buy 1, Get 1 at half off, etc.

• Coupon amount – Enter the coupon or Enter the amount (for Fixed cart and fixed product discount) or percentage (for Percentage discount) that has to be deducted from the bill when customers purchase the products that you have associated with the coupons.
• Allow free shipping – You can check this box if the coupon allows free shipping. But you need to enable a free shipping method in your shipping zone prior to this.
• Coupon Expiry date – Here you can enter an expiry date for the coupon. Note that the coupon will expire at 00:00:00 on the specified date.
• Coupon start date – Here you can enter a start date for the coupon. The coupon will only be available for application from the specified start date.
• Apply coupon automatically – On enabling the checkbox, the coupon will be applied automatically when other coupon criteria are met.
• Make coupon available in – Select the pages where the coupon will be displayed. The available options are My Account and Checkout. 

• Minimum Spend – Here, you can set the minimum amount a customer needs to spend in your store to avail of the coupon.
  • Eg: Get 10% discount on all purchases above $50.

If you set the amount to $50 in this field, the customer will have to spend $50 or more in your store to avail of the coupon.

• Maximum spend – Here you can set the maximum amount a customer needs to spend for availing coupons in your store.
  • Eg: Get 10% off on all purchases up to $50

If you set the amount to $50 in this field, the customer can only avail of this coupon for purchases up to $50.

• Individual use only – You can check this box if the coupon cannot be used with other coupons.
• Exclude sale items – Check this box if you don’t want to provide extra discounts on items that are currently on sale. If enabled, Percentage, Fixed cart and Fixed product discounts will only be applied to the subtotal of the items that are not on sale. 
• Products/Category restrictions – Check this box if you want the coupon to be applied only when the cart that satisfies the product/category conditions that you have put forth. 
• Individual quantity restriction – Enable this checkbox if you want to set product or category restrictions for individual products/product categories that you want inside the cart.
• Product conditions – Choose All from below section to restrict the coupon from associating with the products/cart until every product/product in the selected category specified here is added to the cart. Choose Any from below section if you want the coupon to be applied if any of the listed products/products in the selected categories are in the cart. 
• Products – Products that the coupon will be applied to, or that need to be in the cart in order for the “Fixed cart discount” to be applied. Also, specify the minimum and maximum quantity of that product that should be added to the cart for the coupon to be valid. You can add more products by clicking on the + button at the bottom of the field.
  • Eg: Imagine you want to apply a fixed cart discount to two products (Pen and Pencil) in your store. Now, if you choose ‘Any from below section’ only one of the products has to be in the cart for the coupon to work. If you choose ‘All from below section’ both products should be in the cart for the coupon to work.

• Exclude products – Specify the products to which coupons should not be applied. Or, in the case of a Fixed cart coupon, the products which when added to the cart, disengage that coupon.
  • Example: You want to exclude two products (Pen and Pencil) in your store from applying fixed cart products coupons. Now if you choose ‘Any’ the coupon will not be applied if either pen or pencil is in the cart. If you choose ‘All’ the coupon will not be applied, only if both pen and pencil are in the cart.

• Category condition – Similar to the product condition, you can choose the category condition to be either ‘Any from below section’ or ‘All from below section’.
• Product categories – Select the category of items that should be eligible for the coupon-based discount. Also, specify the minimum and maximum quantity of products in the respective category that has to be in the cart. 
  • Example: You need to apply a fixed cart discount to two categories in your store (clothing and shoes). If you choose ‘Any from below section’ the coupon will work if either clothing or shoe category is in the cart. If you choose ‘All from below section’ both categories should be in the cart for the coupon to work. 

• Exclude categories – Select the item categories that should be excluded from the coupon. That is, per-item-based coupons should not be applied to any product in the category. And per-cart-based coupons should not be applied if a product in the category is added to the cart. 
• Minimum quantity of matching products – The minimum number of items, satisfying the product/category conditions, that should be added to the cart for the coupon to become available. If no product/category conditions are added, this would be the minimum number of total products in the shop that should be added to the cart.
  • Eg: Buy 2 T-shirts and get $5 discount

You can configure the coupon by choosing ‘fixed product discount’ as the discount type and entering $5 as the coupon amount. Choose T-shirt in the ‘Product’ field of the usage restriction section. Enter minimum quantity as ‘two’ in matching products.

• Eg: Buy 2 and get 50% off

To configure the coupon, choose the discount type as a percentage and enter the coupon amount as 50. Then add ‘2’ in the ‘Minimum Quantity of Matching Products’ field and publish the coupon.

Maximum quantity of matching products – Similar to Minimum quantity of matching products, here you can restrict coupons based on the maximum number of matching products.

• Eg: Get $10 discount for up to 4 T-shirts

To configure the coupon choose ‘fixed product discount’ as the discount type and enter $10 as the coupon amount. In the ‘Usage restriction’ section choose ‘T-shirt’ as ‘Product’. Enter maximum quantity as ‘four’ in matching products.

Minimum subtotal of matching products – Here you can specify a minimum price subtotal of the products that match the given product or category restrictions.

• Eg: Buy T-shirts worth $30 and get $10 off.

To create the coupon choose ‘fixed product discount’ as the discount type and enter $10 as the coupon amount. In the ‘Usage restriction’ section add T-shirts in the ‘Product’ field. Enter minimum subtotal as ‘$30’ in matching products field.

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

• Eg: Spend up to $50 on T-shirts to avail a discount of $15.

To create the coupon, choose ‘fixed product discount’ as the discount type and enter $15 as the coupon amount. In the ‘Usage restriction’ section, add T-shirts in the ‘Product’ field. Enter the maximum subtotal as ‘$30’ in the matching products field.

• Allowed emails – Add the email addresses of customers in this field; only the users with that email address as their billing address can then use the coupon. You can also use the asterisk wildcard to include a group of customers. For example, if you enter ‘*@acme.com’, all users whose billing address contains the text ‘@acme.com’ will be allowed listed for coupon usage. 

• Usage limit per coupon – Here you can specify how many times this coupon can be used before it expires. If you leave the field empty, the coupon can be used unlimited times.
• Limit usage to X items – The maximum number of individual items the coupon can apply to when using product discounts. If left blank, the coupon applies to all qualifying items in the cart. 
• Usage limit per user – Here you can specify how many times this coupon can be used by an individual user. If you leave the field empty, you allow the user to use the coupon unlimited times. Billing email is used for identifying guest users, and user ID for logged-in users.
• Maximum discount value – Use this option to set a cap on the discount value, especially for percentage discounts, e.g, 10% Discount up to $500.

• Shipping methods – Choose the shipping method/s on which you want to allow the usage of this coupon. This coupon will only work if one of the selected shipping methods is chosen by the customer. If you leave it blank, the coupon will be applied to all shipping methods
  • Eg: Get 20% discount on flat rate shipping.
• To create this discount coupon, you need to select the ‘flat rate shipping method in the shipping methods field above.
• Payment methods – Choose the payment method/s on which you want to allow the usage of this coupon. The coupon will only be applied if the customer selects one of the payment methods from the list. If you leave it blank the coupon will be applied to all payment methods.
  • Eg: 20% discount on all credit card payments.
• To create this coupon you need to select a credit card in the payment methods field.
• Applicable Roles – Add the user roles on which you want to allow the usage of this coupon. Customers who don’t belong to the specified user role(s) will not be eligible for this coupon. If you leave the field empty, the coupon will be available to all user roles.
  • Eg: 30% off for all registered customers.

To create this coupon, you will have to choose ‘Registered customers’ in the user roles field.

• Free Products – Here you can choose the giveaway product from your store that you wish to associate with the coupon. You can only choose one simple or variable product from your store to set as a giveaway. Multiple giveaway products are supported only in the case of BOGO coupons and in premium version of the Smart Coupons for WooCommerce plugin.
  • Eg: Let’s say you want to give away a ‘belt’ for all purchases above $50.

if BOGO was selected as discount type the giveaway products tab will be as follows.

• Customer gets – For the free version of the plugin you have only the option to provide a selected product as giveaway item.
• Products – The selected product will be provided as a giveaway product.
  • Product – Product to provide as a giveaway.
  • Quantity – The number of the selected item to provide as a giveaway.
  • Discount – Provide the selected product at a discount other than providing it as a free item.

All the auto-apply coupons created are listed under a single tab for connivance. To manage auto apply coupon from the All Coupons page click on Auto-apply coupons.

This page lists all available auto-apply coupons along with the priority that they will be applied on the store.

The coupon ith higher priority will be applied first. By default, the plugin will go through the first 10 coupons until it find 5 eligible coupons.

If there are 6 eligible coupons in the list, only the first 5 will be applied. Similarly, if there’s only one eligible coupon among the first 10 coupons, it will be the only one applied. To change these numbers click on Auto apply coupon settings

• No of coupons that will be checked for auto-apply eligibility – The plugin will go through the selected number of coupons in the list.
• Max auto-apply coupons per cart – The selected number of coupons will be applied to the cart automatically from the No of coupons that will be checked for auto-apply eligibility.

Group coupons based on category by using the Coupon category option. From your dashboard, head on to Smart Coupons > Coupon category on the WordPress dashboard.

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.

The coupon category will appear in the coupon edit window as shown below:

The page lists the basic general configurations for the plugin such as customizing the coupon layout, creating URLs for coupons, and more.

From your dashboard, head on to Smart Coupons > General settings > Layouts. A window appears as shown below:

The plugin allows you to customize the appearance of coupons. You can choose the required color and design for Available coupons, Used coupons, and Expired coupons.

URL Coupons feature helps you add a unique URL to any coupon in your e-commerce store. in the basic version of the plugin, URL coupons can be implemented with the help of a shortcode.

Following is the format you need to follow to create a URL coupon.

{site_url}/?wt_coupon={coupon_code}

Clicking the URL ensures that the underlying coupon is applied as per its respective configuration e.g allow a discount, giveaway free product, etc.

Following is an example of a URL coupon:

[https://www.webtoffee.com/cart/?wt_coupon=flat30]

This URL coupon offers a flat 30 percentage of discount at www.webtoffee.com, coupon_code = FLAT30, site_url(preferably cart page) = https://www.webtoffee.com/cart