Coupon codes can be a very significant marketing tool, so it's important to understand what is and isn't possible with FoxyCart's coupon and quantity discounting functionality. While coupon codes and quantity discounts may not seem inherently related, FoxyCart uses almost the same logic and syntax for both, so we'll discuss them together.

We've found that stores with coupon codes tend to generate 60% more revenue and 83% more transactions than stores not utilizing coupon codes, and those numbers increase (significantly) as the number of coupon codes increases. (Stores with 10 or more coupon codes do 3.8x the revenue and 3x the transactions. According to our data, at least. No joke.) It's not a magic bullet, but simply having coupon codes available can motivate an otherwise “too busy” merchant or marketer to do some email marketing or advertisements promoting the coupon codes. Try it! According to our system-wide data, you won't regret it.

It's important to understand that both coupon codes and discounts can apply a value or percentage based discount, based on the value or quantity “tier” of the cart (or of specific categories, or specific products, depending). This is a critical piece to understand, because in FoxyCart you cannot simply apply a “$5 discount” without a tier, even if that tier is simply “minimum quantity of 1 product”.

That might sound confusing, but once you understand the logic and syntax you'll see how it's possible to create very advanced discount structures without much trouble at all.

In order to make sure we're on the same page, let's review the terms we'll be using.

Discount Name

The text displayed to the customer where a discount is applied. For example, “Spring Cleaning Special” or “Wholesale Quantity Discount”.

Discount Method

The type of discounting method being applied, such as “discount by the price based on the quantity” or “discount by a percentage based on the cart subtotal”. Details.

Discount Type

The specific type of discount, such as an “all units quantity discount”, a “one off” discount, a “Buy One, Get One”, or etc. Details.

Discount Amount

The amount of the discount, either applied as a set dollar (or other currency) amount or as a percentage of the product price. Details.

Discount Tier

The threshold (either a currency value or a product quantity value) that must be reached in order for a the corresponding discount amount to be applied. All discount types can accept multiple tiers except for the repeat type.

The discount syntax below shows all the pieces to creating a discount. In a coupon or category discount, the discount_method is specified separate from the

Quantity discounts can be applied in two ways: specific to a product, or specific to a category (or categories). If a discount is added to the cart with a product, then the quantity discount will apply to that product and that product only. This is often desired for items that may be ordered in bulk, like screws or other hardware. If a discount is set at the category level, the discount will apply across all the products in the category equally, so category-based discounts work best when the category contains similarly priced items.

It is important to note that the discount tiers only count against the portion of the cart that will actually receive a discount. So a category-wide quantity discount that has a quantity tier of 5 will not apply if there are only 3 products in the category, regardless the number of products in other categories.

All product and category quantity discounts are applied to the products themselves, and not as a separate line item like a coupon code. So if a product is ordinarily $10 and has a 10% discount, the discount is reflected in the product details and the product price becomes $9.

Product quantity discounts can be combined with category quantity discounts, as well as coupon codes, however it will likely result in confusion to mix product-specific and category-specific quantity discounts, so it's best avoided if possible.

Unlike product or category quantity discounts, coupon codes apply one single discount as a line-item in the cart, and do not affect the individual product prices. Coupon codes also can apply to one or many categories, but cannot be product-specific (unless the product is the only product in that category).

Coupon codes have a variety of other options in addition to the discounting functionality described above.

Coupon Name

The name displayed in the cart, once a coupon has been added. For example, “Loyal Customer 20% Off Coupon”. This allows both the customer and store admin to easily see what coupon has been applied to their cart.

Coupon Code

This is the “coupon” itself; the actual text that is distributed by the merchant and entered by the customer. This should be alphanumeric, but care should be taken to ensure it's easily readable (ie. 0 versus O, 1 versus l versus I, etc.).

Coupon Variations

FoxyCart allows for a single coupon code to be defined, but to generate multiple distinct coupon variations (up to 100 at a time). This allows for easy creation of multiple unique codes, all with identical discount options, which can be very useful for mail merges or other coupon distribution where any individual coupon code may only have 1 single use, but you may need dozens or hundreds (or thousands).

Combinable

If the “combinable” checkbox is left unchecked when creating a coupon it will not be added to the cart if another coupon is already in the cart. Similarly, if this coupon is added first, no other coupons will be able to be added to the cart.

Taxable

If the “taxable” checkbox is checked when creating the coupon taxes will be applied before the coupon's discount is applied. Check with your tax professional if you have questions about how you should calculate taxes.

Valid Dates

If the coupon has dates set, it can only be used within those date ranges. The start and end dates are inclusive, so coupon codes can be used on the start and end dates as well.

Apply to Categories

Similar to the category quantity discounts, but can be applied to multiple or all categories. So if a coupon code only applies to the T-Shirt category and there are no T-Shirts in the cart, no discount will be applied.

# of Uses (Total)

If you want to limit the number of uses this coupon as a whole can be used, enter a number here. If, for example, only the first 50 customers can use the coupon, enter 50 here. This relates to coupon variants and the number of uses per code (below). If you have 1 coupon code and 10 uses, the coupon will not be able to be used after 10 successful transactions. If you have 1 coupon with 100 variants but only 50 uses, only the first 50 uses will be allowed, regardless of the number of uses per code.

# of Uses (Per Code)

This is similar to the total number of uses, but only limits individual coupon code variants. So if you have 100 coupon code variants and this value is set to 1, each variant will only be able to be used once. The total uses allowed (above) is a higher priority than this, however, so if a coupon's total uses has already been reached then this value doesn't matter.