Overview
There are three ways of specifying a discount in your Volusion catalog as follows (each is explained below):
- Option 1: Set a Sale Price on a specific product
- Option 2: Set a discount percentage or amount on an order (or part of an order)
- Option 3: Create a coupon which applies a discount percentage or amount to an order (or part of an order)
Option 1: Sale Price
This option is applied to a specific product SKU, not to a category or group of products. You need to edit each product SKU and set its Sale Price. When the sale period is over, you need to edit the product SKU again to remove the Sale Price.
The Sale Price is a dollar amount, the new retail price during the sale period. It is not specified as a percentage or an amount off, it is specified as the new dollar amount.
You are unable to set a start and end date for the Sale Price. The Sale Price is in effect on your catalog from the moment you edit the product and specify the Sale Price, until you re-edit the product and remove the Sale Price.
This has to be done for each product that you wish to specify a Sale Price.
Option 2: Order Discount
You define the characteristics of an order discount within your Volusion Admin area and then any customer order that meets the discount criteria you specified, will automatically have the discount applied to their order. The customer doesn't have to do anything to receive the discount, other than have their order match the discount criteria.
Five types of discounts are available:
- Dollar Amount off entire Order
- Dollar Amount off specific Product
- Percentage off entire Order
- Percentage off specific Product
- Free Shipping on entire Order
The discount criteria options can be specified as any combination of the following requirements:
- Date range
- Minimum and/or maximum order total
- Minimum and/or maximum quantity of items in order
- Category (does not include the specified category's subcategories)
- Product SKU
Discounts will remain active until the specified end date is reach. If you haven't specified an end date, then they will remain active until you go back and edit the discount and give it an end date.
You can specify multiple different discounts that can all be simultaneously active and/or you can pre-define multiple future discounts with future start and end dates (e.g. a different discount per month).
Option 3: Coupon
Coupons are created the same way as an order discount is created, except that you define a coupon code that must be entered by the customer to obtain the associated coupon discount (e.g. "25OFFSHIRT"). If the customer does not enter the coupon code, then they don't receive the associated coupon discount even if their order meets the criteria.
The customer's order must still meet the coupon discount criteria otherwise the entered coupon code will be ignored.
Similar to "Option 2: Order Discount" above, the same types of discounts are available and the same discount criteria options are available for coupons.
To use coupons in your catalog, the "Enable Coupon Codes" configuration variable must be enabled. This will prompt all customers with a Coupon Code question during checkout.
You can define multiple coupon codes for different scenarios and have them all active at the same time if you wish, or have different coupons for different date ranges.
Once you define a coupon code, you will need to promote it so that potential customers know about the coupon code and its associated discount.
You should set all or some of your discounted products as "
Featured Products" so they show up on your catalog landing page.
You should promote your sale, discount or coupon using digital marketing methods. If you are unfamiliar with doing this or don't have the time, then contact
Emerge2 for digital marketing assistance.