Discounts that do not eat your margin

A discount is a price change you have decided to make. Decide it with the numbers in front of you, not after.

The three kinds

Code — the customer types it. Good for a campaign you can trace, or for one person you want to make an exception for.

Automatic — applies by itself when the cart matches a rule. Good for "buy two, get the third", bad when you forget it is running.

Free delivery over an amount — not a discount on the goods, a discount on the delivery. It moves the average order more than a percentage usually does.

Do this arithmetic first

Take your worst case, not your average:

• The smallest order the discount applies to. What is left after the goods cost you what they cost?
• If delivery is free over a threshold, what does the order just above the threshold leave you?
• If you run a basket discount and a free-delivery threshold, check that the discount cannot push a cart back under the threshold. The customer then loses free delivery to save a smaller amount — they are worse off and they will see it.

Limits worth setting

An end date, a usage cap, and whether it can be combined with other discounts. A code with none of those is a code that will still be working next year.

What to check

• Add the exact cart the discount targets, and read the total. Not the rule — the total.
• Add a cart just below the condition and confirm it does not apply.
• Check the order in the admin afterwards shows the discount as a line, so you can find it later.

A discount that looks right in the settings has not been tested. A cart total has.