An offer promotes specific products, provides a discount for one or more products in your store, or provides a discount on shipping method or destination. You can create offers for a single product, a group of products, all products in one or more categories, or all products in your store.
Use the Type step to create offers that discount or promote one or more products in your store.
Basic
The basic offer information applies to every offer regardless of offer type or the options you enabled for the offer.
Start and end dates
You can use the expiration settings to define how long your offer should be available in your store. Shoppers cannot see or redeem offers outside of the time range you define for when you want the offer active. If you do not set an end date for the offer, the offer will be active until it is retired. When an offer reaches its end date, shoppers can no longer see, or redeem them but they still exist.
Best Practices: We recommend that you retire expired offers.
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Start Date |
The first day when shoppers can redeem the offer in your store. You must deploy the offer before this date so that the offer can go live on this date. Choose one of the following options:
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| End Date |
The last day when shoppers can redeem the offer in your store. Choose one of the following options:
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Type
Choose the type of offer you want to create. The offer type determines how the offer behaves in your store and the types of discounts and products it can provide.
Note: Some of the types described in the following table may not appear if your site has not been set up to use them. See Configuring offer types for more information on how to set up offer types for your store.
See the following topics for more information on creating specific types of offers:
| Type and Description | Additional Information |
|---|---|
| General Site or Product Discount | |
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Provides a discount for a specific product, a set of products, a category of products, or all products in your store. Example: Get 25% off your purchase today. |
Provides a general discount on specific products or all products on your site. Tiered discounts? Yes Control offer usage?
Point of Promotion Required? No Triggers: Discount levels: Product(s) –or– Order Total Note the following:
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| Relationship Between Multiple Products | |
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A type of bundle offer where an interstitial page presents the shoppers with a set of products they can choose to create their own bundle. or a discount can appear in the shopping cart if a tiered discount based on quantity exists. Example: Choose any 3 products for $29.99. |
Allow the shopper to select their own products in a bundle. Tiered discounts?: Yes Control offer usage?
Point of Promotion Required? Recommended, but not required. Triggers: Discount levels: Products –or– Order Total |
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A type of bundle offer that automatically adds a product to the shopping cart when a shopper adds any product to the shopping cart. Example: Buy any product and get a free t-shirt. |
Offer a free or discounted product when the shopper adds any product to the cart. Tiered discounts?: Yes Control offer usage?
Point of Promotion Required? No Triggers: Discount levels: Products You can define the number of parent products you want the shopper to purchase before they can redeem the offer. |
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A type of bundle offer that allows a shopper to choose from different products in different groups (some of which may be required) to define the bundle of products they want to purchase. Example: Build your own custom product. |
A type of bundle where you create groups of products with varying discounts from which the shopper can choose. Tiered discounts?: No Control offer usage?
Point of Promotion Required? Yes
Triggers: Discount levels: Products – Or – Bundle Note the following:
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A type of bundle offer that automatically adds a product to the shopping cart when a shopper adds another product to the shopping cart. Example:
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Add a discounted product directly to the cart when the shopper purchases another product. Tiered discounts?: Yes Control offer usage?
Point of Promotion Required? No Triggers: Discount levels: Products You can specify products or categories of products that you want to discount. You can also use exclusions to provide the discount on all your products or categories except those you specifically exclude. |
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Presents the shopper with an alternate product or products (usually of higher quality or cost) when a shopper adds a specific product to the shopping cart. Example:
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Present additional products (usually of higher quality or cost) that the shopper can choose to replace the original product they added to their cart. Tiered discounts?: Yes Control offer usage?
Point of Promotion Required? Yes Triggers: Discount levels: Products |
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A type of bundle offer that presents the shopper with a product when the shopper adds another product to the shopping cart. Example: Offer the shopper accessories for the digital camera they just added to the shopping cart. |
Preset additional products that the shopper can choose to add to their cart. Tiered discounts?: Yes Control offer usage?
Point of Promotion Required? Yes
Triggers: Discount levels: Products You can choose products or categories of products for your parent products in the offer. The system uses parent products to determine if the order qualifies for the discount. |
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A type of bundle offer that presents the shopper a free or discounted product when the shopper purchases another product. Example: Buy one video game, get a different game for free. |
Present a free or discounted product when the shopper purchases another product. Tiered discounts?: No Control offer usage?
Point of Promotion Required? Recommended, but not required. Triggers: Discount levels: Products Note the following:
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| Feature Products or Promotions on Your Site | |
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Shows a list of "featured" products (usually up to five) somewhere in your store (typically the home page). Example: This month’s special deals. |
Shows a list of featured products somewhere on your site (typically the home page). Tiered discounts?: Yes Control offer usage?
Point of Promotion Required? Yes. There are several different POPs you can use:
Triggers: Discount levels: Products This offer type may require site design work to display the offer where and how you expect to see it in your store. |
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Displays a banner that promotes products and presents the shopper with an offer that they can click them to redeem. Example: Advertise new product lines with a banner ad in your store. |
Display a banner add on your store's page. Example: Add a banner to your home page, shopping cart, or pop-up that advertises a discounted product. Tiered discounts?: Yes Control offer usage?
Point of Promotion Required? Yes. There are several different POPs you can use:
Triggers: Discount levels: Products –or– Order Total This offer type may require site design work to display the offer where and how you expect to see it in your store. |
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A shipping offer provides a discount on the shipping costs when an order meets certain criteria such as the shopper purchased a specific product, the total value of the order is greater than or equal to a specified amount, the shipping destination (shipping address), or chosen shipping method. Note: Shipping offers do not require a POP when you use them in your store. You can use a banner image or pop-up to promote the shipping offer in your store. Note that you may need to do some site design work if you want offers to appear in POPs on pages of your store. |
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These offers provide a shipping discount for a specific product (or products) that you add to the offer itself. Shipping offers only discount shipping for the products you add to the offer and will not discount shipping for any other products in the order. Note: Some of the offer types listed here may not appear when you create an offer if you did not set up your site to use them. See Configuring offer types for more information on how to set up offer types for your site. |
Choose one of the following options:
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Discount shipping on order when a specific product is purchased These offers provide a shipping discount on the entire order when a shopper purchases a specific product. |
Choose one of the following options:
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Discount shipping on order regardless of products purchased These offers provide a shipping discount on the order regardless of the products purchased and use other conditions (such as the number of products purchased or the shipping method the shopper chooses) to determine if the order qualifies for the discount. |
Choose one of the following options:
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Bundle offers
A product offer is an offer that discounts or promotes specific products in your store. You can create product offers for a single product, a group of products, all products in one or more categories, or all products in your store.
A bundle offer is an offer where the products in the offer have a relationship (see Parent and Child Products), and shoppers receive a discount when they purchase bundled products.
You can create many types of bundle offers. To learn more about the specific types of bundle offers you can create, see Type.
Tip: If your store sells digital products and uses the Extended Download Service, we recommend you create bundle offers for your digital products and add EDS as a "child" product. Our tests show that shoppers are more likely to purchase EDS when the system automatically adds it to the shopping cart via a bundle offer. Note that offers do not have to provide a discount so you can use a bundle offer to add a product to the shopping cart. Be aware that shoppers can only add one bundle with EDS to their cart in a single order because EDS cannot exist more than once in a shopping cart regardless of how you added it (either as a standalone product or as part of a bundle).
Parent and Child Products
In a bundle offer, a "parent" product is the product that initiates the offer (the one the shopper adds to the shopping cart). A "child" product is the product offered to the shopper or added to the shopping cart when the shopper adds the parent product to the shopping cart. Shoppers must add a parent product to the shopping cart first to trigger a bundle offer.
All bundle offers (with the exceptions noted below) must have at least one parent product and one child product and those products should never be the same product.
- The "all products bundle" offer type uses every product in the default catalog for the site as the parent product so you are only required to select the child product.
- The "custom bundle" offer type does not have traditional parent and child products like other bundle offers. Instead, you create groups of products from which shoppers can choose and the groups or products do not have a relationship with each other as they do with other bundle offers.
When you create a bundle offer, you define how you want the parent and child products to behave in relation to each other.
See Bundle policy to learn more about the relationship between parent and child products in bundles.
How the products added to the cart affects bundles
To trigger a bundle, a shopper must add the parent product to the shopping cart first. If a shopper adds a child product to the shopping cart, the system will not trigger the bundle offer for the order.
Purchasing parent or child products in addition to a bundle
If a shopper wants to purchase a parent and/or child product in addition to the bundle for which those products belong, one of the following options must be true:
- You enabled "allow duplicate line items" enabled for the site. (To learn more about the duplicate line items setting, contact your Store Operations team.) When you enable the duplicate line items setting for a site, shoppers can purchase two of the same bundle, or purchase a parent and/or child product in addition to a bundle that also contains those products.
- You set the Bundle policy "tight" or "tight with independent child quantity," and the shopper must add a child product to the shopping cart before they add the parent product to trigger the bundle.
Purchasing two bundles at once
Shoppers can purchase two bundles at once, even if those bundles share a parent and/or child product. You do not need to enable the "allow duplicate line items" setting to allow a shopper to purchase two bundles even if those bundles have shared products.
Note: If you did not enable the "allow duplicate line items" setting for a site, and a shopper adds a bundle with the "tight" policy to the shopping cart and then adds a bundle with the "semi-tight" policy that contains a product from the tight bundle, only the non-shared products in the semi-tight bundle will be added to the cart.
Example: Bundle #1 (the tight bundle) has products A and B. Bundle #2 (the semi-tight bundle) has products B and C. When the shopper adds bundle #2 to the cart, the system will only add product C because it already exists in the cart from bundle #1.
Bundle offers and points of promotion (POPs)
Most bundle offers do not require that you use a point of promotion (POP) in your store. However, you may want to use a banner POP or interstitial POP to promote the offer.
Bundle policy
In bundle offers, a bundle policy is a relationship between the parent and child products. When you create an offer, you select how you want the parent and child products to behave and that defines the bundle policy the offer assumes.
Note: The bundle policy is not applicable to custom bundles. See Custom bundle offers for more information.
Setting Bundle Policy
The "Bundle Options" area in the Offer Wizard shows the policy used for your offer. You may notice that as you select different behavior options, the policy changes to reflect the setup. The bundle policy area near the bottom.
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Parent and child Removal Behavior |
Choose one of the following options to define the parent and child removal behavior:
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| Quantity Behavior |
Choose one of the following options to define quantity behavior:
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| Bundle Policy |
The options you choose for Parent and Child Removal Behavior and Quantity Behavior determines the bundle policy. The possible bundle policies are as follows:
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Explanation of bundle policies
This topic explains the bundle policies an offer can have and shows how you can make your offer use a specific policy with the bundle options.
Loose bundle
To define a loose bundle, choose the following options:
- Parent and child can be removed independently
- Independent quantities
| When This Happens... | This Happens... |
|---|---|
| Shopper adds parent product to the shopping cart. | The system adds the child product added to the cart. |
| Shopper changes the quantity of the parent product. | The child product quantity remains the same. |
| Shopper deletes the parent product from the shopping cart. | The child product remains the same. |
| The shopper changes the quantity of the child product. | The parent product quantity remains the same. |
| Shopper deletes the child product from the shopping cart. | The parent product quantity remains the same. |
Semi-tight bundle
To define a Semi-tight bundle, choose the following options:
- Parent and child can be removed independently
-
Restrict child quantity behavior
- Child quantity is less than or equal to parent quantity
| When This Happens... | This Happens... |
|---|---|
| Shopper adds the parent product to the shopping cart. | The system adds the child product to cart. |
| Shopper changes the quantity of the parent product. | System updates the child so that it is not greater than the parent. |
| Shopper deletes the parent product from the shopping cart. | The system deletes both the parent product and child product. |
| Shopper changes the quantity of child product. | N/A—The shopper cannot change the child product .quantity |
| Shopper deletes the child product from the shopping cart. | The parent product quantity remains the same. |
Note: If you did not enable the "allow duplicate line items" setting for a site, and a shopper adds a bundle with the "tight" policy to the shopping cart and then adds a bundle with the "semi-tight" policy that contains a product from the tight bundle, only the non-shared products in the semi-tight bundle will be added to the cart.
Example: Bundle #1 (the tight bundle) has products A and B. Bundle #2 (the semi-tight bundle) has products B and C. When the shopper adds bundle #2 to the cart, the system will only add product C because it already exists in the cart from bundle #1.
Tight bundle
To define a tight bundle, choose the following options:
- Removing parent removes child
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Restrict child quantity behavior
- Child quantity is less than or equal to parent quantity
| When This Happens... | This Happens... |
|---|---|
| Shopper adds the parent product added to the shopping cart. | The system adds the child product added to cart. |
| The shopper changes the quantity of parent product. | The system changes the child product quantity to match the parent product quantity. |
| The shopper deletes the parent product from the shopping cart. | The system deletes the parent product and child product. |
| The shopper changes the quantity of child product. | The system changes the parent product quantity to match the child product quantity. |
| The shopper deletes the child product from the shopping cart. | The system deletes the parent product and child product. |
Note: If you did not enable the "allow duplicate line items" setting for a site, and a shopper adds a bundle with the "tight" policy to the shopping cart and then adds a bundle with the "semi-tight" policy that contains a product from the tight bundle, only the non-shared products in the semi-tight bundle will be added to the cart.
Example: Bundle #1 (the tight bundle) has products A and B. Bundle #2 (the semi-tight bundle) has products B and C. When the shopper adds bundle #2 to the cart, the system will only add product C because it already exists in the cart from bundle #1.
Tight bundle with independent child quantity
To define a tight bundle with independent child quantity, choose the following options:
- Removing parent removes child
- Independent quantities
| When This Happens... | This Happens... |
|---|---|
| The shopper adds the parent product to the shopping cart. | Child product added to cart. |
| The shopper changes the quantity of parent product. | The child product remains the same. |
| The shopper deletes the parent product from the shopping cart. | The system deletes the parent product and child product. |
| The shopper changes the quantity of child product. | The parent product remains the same. |
| The shopper deletes the child product from shipping cart. | The system deletes the parent product and child product. |
Trigger
The offer trigger determines how the shopper activates or redeems an offer. The type of offer you selected in the under Type determines which trigger options the system enables or disables. See the following topics for more information:
Depending on the offer type you selected, you may not be able to select some triggers.
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Always Triggered |
The offer is always visible to shoppers. Shoppers automatically get offers that are Always Triggered when their purchase meets the requirements outlined in the offer itself. As long as the products associated with the offer are in the shopping cart and meets the offer requirements (such as the specified shipping method, the minimum order value, or purchase quantity), a shopper can redeem the offer. Completing the purchase is the only action required by the shopper. |
|
/ External Triggered |
An API triggers the offer, or a shopper triggers the offer by clicking a promotional link (URL) to redeem the offer. |
| Coupon Code |
The shopper must enter a coupon code (usually alphanumeric, but codes can contain some symbols as well) to redeem the offer. See How to create a coupon code offer for more information. Tip: Offers that use the Coupon Code trigger must also use the PointOfSale_CouponEntryField POP for the coupon code field to appear during checkout. |
| Site Test |
Triggers an offer when you run the Site Optimizer test. When you deploy an offer with the trigger of Site Test, the offer does not appear on your live store until it is part of a deployed Site Optimizer test. See Site Optimizer tests for more information on using Site Optimizer to test marketing offers. Only use the Site Test offer trigger with offers that you have created for Site Optimizer tests. |
Triggers and offer types
The following table shows what triggers each offer type can use.
Choosing the offer trigger
The offer trigger determines how the shoppers activate and redeem the offer. Depending on the trigger, shoppers may need to click a link or enter a code during checkout to redeem an offer.
Note: Once you create and deploy an offer, you cannot change the offer trigger.
The following tables describe scenarios where you want to provide a discount on the shipping costs for a product or order and provides the appropriate offer type for each scenario.
| You want to provide an offer that... | Trigger |
|---|---|
| Is available to any shopper in your store. Shoppers must meet the conditions you set up in the offer to trigger and redeem the offer. | Always Triggered |
| The shopper must clink a link to redeem the offer. You can limit how many times an individual shopper can redeem an offer. | Promotional URL |
| The shopper must enter a coupon code in the shopping cart to redeem the offer. You can limit how many times an individual shopper can redeem the offer. | Coupon Code |
| You can test the effectiveness of offers in your store. Offers that use this trigger are not available for shoppers to redeem in your store. | Site Test |
Restricting Promotional URL usage
Because the promotional URL trigger type requires shoppers to click a link to trigger the offer, you can limit the number of times a shopper can use a promotional URL. You can also limit the total number of shoppers who can use the promotional URL.
Example: A shopper can redeem the offer once or only 100 shoppers can use the offer.
Limiting the number of times a promotional URL offer can be redeemed encourages shoppers to act fast to redeem the offer (if you inform them of the limited nature of the offer). Each a shopper uses an offer,
Global Commerce automatically increments each time a shopper uses an offer by 1.
Restricting Coupon Code usage
You can restrict offers triggered by coupon code by specifying the number of times shoppers can use each code. This is especially useful when you limit each code to a single use and target shoppers with those unique codes or limit the total code use to a specific number to encourage shoppers to act fast to redeem an offer.
Creating Links for Promotional URL Offers
When you create an offer with the Promotional URL trigger, you should also create a link for the offer in Store Builder. Once you have a link, you can copy and paste the link into an email, add it to your store, and so on. Shoppers will click the link to trigger the offer. These types of offers usually take a shopper directly to the shopping cart (and adds the products) or to a product detail page where they can choose their delivery method, variation, and so on.
Using the Promotional URL Trigger to Add Products to Cart
If you create an offer that uses the Promotional URL trigger to add a product to the shopping cart, you must use either an individual product ID or a variation ID for products with variations. Do not use the base product ID for products with variations or the link will take the shopper to the product details page for the base product (not the shopping cart, as you intend).
Getting coupon codes
When you create an offer that uses coupon codes, the system creates will create the coupon codes using a set of parameters that you defined. If you already have a set of codes you want to use, you can import them into the offer.
When an offer uses coupon codes, you can view the number of codes associated with the offer or the number of codes used. This allows you to easily manage your code inventory and keep the promotion running smoothly in your store.
Tip: Create, upload, or generate coupon codes for your offers before you distribute any codes to shoppers. This is because system-generated codes are 9-digits and no other codes (uploaded or created) can be 9-digits. If you create your codes for the offer before you distribute any codes to shoppers, you can be sure that the codes will work with the offer.