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How does discounting work? What are the options for giving discounts to certain users?
Question
How can I create discounts for certain customers? Does CactuShop support 'coupons' and how to these work?
Answer
CactuShop has support for two kinds of discounting.
CUSTOMER DISCOUNTS
When a user makes an order, a customer record is created. This is linked to their email address and will be used next time they order too. Customer records can also be created from the back end, so you can set customers up even before they have made an order. Customers can be assigned a percentage discount - this is applied at the point they checkout and shown on the order summary and invoice clearly as a customer discount. It applies to all items in the order.
COUPON DISCOUNTS
These are codes that unlock either a percentage or fixed amount discount that is then applied to an order. Coupons can be created in bulk from the back end and can (optionally) have start and expiry dates and can be 'use-once' or 'reusable'. Coupons apply to the total cost of the order, not to specific items or categories of items. If a 'fixed amount' coupon that values more than the cost of the order is used, the excess value is forfeited and may not be recovered or used later (a reusable coupon may of course be reused in its entirety). The discount applied and the amount of it which is tax is clearly shown on order summaries and invoices.
Coupons can be used in conjunction with a customer discount. In this case, the coupon discount is applied first, and the customer discount to the amount left after the coupon discount.