How to Create Basic & Advanced Smart WooCommerce Coupons

The default WooCommerce coupons will allow you to set up only basic discounts – percentage discount, fixed cart discount and fixed product discount.

But to grow sales and retain customers for a lifetime, you need advanced WooCommerce coupons like gift cards, store credits, BOGO coupons, URL coupons and other smart coupons types.

However, the biggest challenge store owners face is getting all these coupons in one solution. They spend hundreds of dollars in buying multiple plugins, and gets stuck in dealing with each plugin support in case of issues.

So, that’s not the case anymore when you have the original and best-selling WooCommerce Smart Coupons plugin from StoreApps.

It’s an all-in-one solution that provides all the smart advanced WooCommerce coupon types at a reasonable cost.

Let’s see how to create the default WooCommerce coupons and all the smart coupons types.

How to create default WooCommerce coupons?

To create WooCommerce coupon codes, follow these steps:

Adding a coupon

Go to your WordPress Admin panel. Click on Marketing > Coupons > Add Coupon.

Enter coupon data and discount

Under the General tab:

1. Enter coupon code – Using the WooCommerce coupon code generator, enter a unique code or set your own coupon code.
2. Coupon description – Write for your reference why the coupon is created for.
3. Select discount type – There are three discount types, you need to select one:
   1. Percentage discount – percentage discount offered on the cart.
   2. Fixed cart discount – flat amount discount on the cart.
   3. Fixed product discount – flat amount discount on a specific product.

For example, when using coupons for a cart consisting of three pairs of shoes selling at $50 each, it sums up to $150 in total. So, a fixed cart discount of $20 gives the user a $20 discount on the overall price or cart total.

On the other hand, a fixed product discount would translate to a total discount of $60 for the three pairs ($20 for each).

As for the percentage discount, the price, in this case, would be $45 for each pair, when the coupon discount percentage is 10%.

4. Coupon amount – Enter the discount or fixed price value.
5. Allow free shipping – Tick the checkbox if your product qualifies for free shipping.
6. Coupon expiry date – Set an expiry date for your coupon.

Set usage restrictions

WooCommerce coupons have restrictions that govern their utilization, to avoid the likelihood of misuse by customers.

You can set a maximum of nine restrictions for a particular coupon. The following lists them all and it’s your choice which one you want to set for your coupon.

1. Minimum spend – Customers’ cart or order total should be at least this much amount for the coupon to get applied.
2. Maximum spend – Coupons should not get applied beyond this amount. In other words, set the best range of amount limits between which coupons can be applied.
3. Individual use only – Tick this if you don’t want any other coupon to get applied. Best to control over-use of coupons and discounts.
4. Exclude sale items – Select this option if you don’t want to add a coupon to products on sale.
5. Products – This will allow adding coupon only on specific products.
6. Exclude products – Set this option if you don’t want to give a discount on some products. Say your best-sellers.
7. Product categories – This will allow adding a coupon only on specific product categories.
8. Exclude categories – Set this option if you don’t want to give a discount on some product categories.
9. Email restrictions – Enter a list of emails to be checked against the customer’s billing email for coupon to get applied.

Set usage limits

1. Usage limit per coupon – Define the number of times this coupon can be used before it is void.
2. Limit usage to X items – Set a limit to the number of items you want the coupon to be valid. If not selected, it will apply to all items in the cart.
3. Usage limit per user – Define the number of times an individual can use the coupon before it becomes invalid.

Publish & verify

Cross-check again if everything you want is in place. If yes, click on Publish. Go to your store, add products to the cart, apply coupon code and check if the discount is applied to the cart.

Congratulations! You have now successfully learned how to create a WooCommerce coupon.

Generally, basic discounts won’t work all the time. With increasing competition, store owners must be clever enough to offer alluring offers that draw customers in and ignite their interest in purchasing.

That’s why you need WooCommerce Smart Coupons plugin. It has everything you need to increase sales and retain customers using discounts, coupons, credits, vouchers, product giveaways, offers and promotions.

It’s a powerful extension built on top of WooCommerce coupons, trusted by 25600+ paid customers.

Let’s see how Smart Coupons help create the advanced WooCommerce coupon types.

Setting up all the advanced smart coupons for WooCommerce

We’ll see the steps for creating the following WooCommerce smart coupons types:

1. Gift cards / store credits with scheduling
2. Buy one get one or BOGO coupon
3. Bulk generated coupons
4. URL coupons
5. Advanced restriction coupons
6. Subscription coupons with restrictions

How to create advanced WooCommerce gift card coupons?

Creating WooCommerce gift cards/gift certificates/store credits using Smart Coupons is straightforward.

You can issue gift cards of any amount, fixed amount, fixed denominations, discounted gift cards and physical gift cards.

Steps to create a gift card of any amount

1. Go to WordPress Admin panel > Marketing > Coupons > Add coupon. Give it a name, say Gift Card.
2. Go to the General tab.
3. Under Discount type, select Store Credit / Gift Certificate.
4. Leave coupon amount blank.
5. Enable Coupon Value Same as Product’s Price option.
6. Next, you have the normal usage restrictions and limits for a coupon.
7. Publish the coupon.

Now, since this gift card will be a digital product, you need to create a ‘Simple’ product in WooCommerce.

1. Go to WooCommerce > Products > Add or edit an existing ‘Simple’ product.
2. Name the product, i.e Gift Card.
3. Important: Leave Regular Price & Sale Price fields blank. Mark product as ‘Virtual’ to let off shipping charges.
4. Under the Coupons option, search for and select the coupon created in the above step, i.e. Gift Card.
5. Publish the product.

Note – Since we want customers to purchase a gift card of any amount, coupon amount and product prices are left blank.

That’s it. You can also view this video for the steps to create and sell gift cards.

Try live demo

Sell gift cards to users

The gift card you created above is a simple product. So customers can purchase it in quantities. They can enter the amount of the gift card they want to purchase, add it to their cart and then check out.

Schedule gift cards

During checkout, your customers also have the option to send gift cards along with a custom message to their friends or loved ones at checkout and they can schedule when to send those gift cards.

You can also send gift certificates / store credits to your customers on their birthdays or holiday season to make future purchases on your store. They will find it under their My Account > Coupons section.

Your customers can make payments from their gift card balance on your store until the credit/validity expires.

Here’s how to send store credit to customers

How to create WooCommerce BOGO coupon?

Consider you want to offer a large-sized red-colored T-shirt when the same product is added to the cart. Follow these steps:

1. Go to WordPress Admin panel > Marketing > Coupons > Add coupon.
2. Under the General tab, select Fixed cart discount as the discount type and set the Coupon amount to zero. This is to avoid offering the main product at a discount.
3. Under the Usage restriction tab, go to Products. Choose the large-sized red-colored T-shirt on which the BOGO offer will be applicable.



4. Go to the Actions tab. Under Add products to cart, search and choose the same product that you have set at zero discount for the BOGO offer.
5. Since this is a buy one get one free offer, select 1 under each with quantity and under with discount of, enter 100%. In case you want to offer the product at 50% off, enter the discount amount as 50. It will be a buy one get one at 50% off.



6. Publish your coupon.

That’s it. Your buy one get one or BOGO coupon is created.

For more detailed information and creating a buy one get more offer, refer to this documentation here.

How to bulk generate coupon codes?

Smart Coupons is also a powerful WooCommerce coupon code generator. You can generate thousands of coupons in bulk with all the necessary restrictions.

You can also bulk generate store-credit/ gift certificates in bulk.

1. Go to WordPress Admin panel > Marketing > Coupons.
2. Click on the Bulk Generate tab.
3. Choose whether to:
   1. Add generated coupons to store
   2. Export coupons to CSV (creates a CSV file you can import later)
   3. Email the generated coupons to the recipients after adding to store
4. Add other restrictions and limits as you wish.
5. Click on Apply.

That’s it.

Here’s an example of CSV export of bulk generated coupons, each having a unique coupon code.

Smart Coupons also allows you to generate coupons in bulk with categories. Here’s how.

How to set up WooCommerce coupons with advanced restrictions?

Other than the default WooCommerce coupon restrictions, you get additional advanced restrictions. You can use any of the combinations or all.

• New user
• Expiry time
• Maximum discount
• Email restrictions
• Location based – country, city, postal or zip code
• Payment methods
• Shipping methods
• User roles
• Product attributes
• Product taxonomy
• Product quantity

Go to WooCommerce > Coupons > General and you have New user, Max discount and Coupon expiry time restrictions.

Now, go to WooCommerce > Coupons > Usage restrictions and you have the remaining restrictions (highlighted in green) as shown in the image below.

Choose the restriction and enter values for which you want to allow the usage of this coupon.

It can’t get easier than this!

How to set up URL coupons in WooCommerce

With URL coupons, you can pass multiple coupon codes to any URL including custom ones, clicking on which the coupons will be auto-applied.

URL coupons will obey all the limits and usage restrictions (advanced ones like payment methods, product quantity, shipping methods…) when applied.

By default, on click on the URL coupon, the user gets redirected to the shop page. You can redirect to the cart page, checkout page or any other page on click of the URL.

Consider you want to a 10% off coupon to be applied via URL. Here are the steps:

1. Go to WordPress admin panel > Marketing > Coupons > Add coupon
2. Set the coupon code or generate it; set discount type, coupon amount, restrictions & other limits.
3. Tick the Auto-apply? checkbox.
4. Publish the coupon.



5. Once you publish the coupon, you would see a box on the right hand side named Coupon shareable link.
6. Click on the button Click to copy to copy the link & share it wherever you want.

Once any customer clicks the URL, the discount automatically gets applied.

Know more ahout URL coupons and use cases

How to restrict WooCommerce subscription coupons?

Smart Coupons is compatible with Woo Subscriptions plugin. So you can allow the coupons to get auto-applied, restrict coupons for specific payment gateways and location, subscription products, etc. For example:

• $5 flat off on sign-up fee for a product worth $50 auto-applied.
• 10% off on sign-up fee for a product worth $150 when the payment gateway is Stripe.
• $10 recurring coupon for product valid till 9 payments only for customers in Europe.
• 10% recurring coupon for products valid till 6 payments for all subs products from category Analytics.

and many more…

Learn more about subscription coupons

Smart applications of WooCommerce coupons

You just read some cool smart coupons types. Let’s see how to make some best use of them.

Offer store credit for a refund

Morgan is unhappy with his purchase and requests a refund. You can issue him a store credit instead of a refund. This is an effective strategy for encouraging him to make another purchase and compensating for a previous bad experience.

Recommended read – Nine best WooCommerce store credit use cases to boost sales

Set exact coupon expiry time

Create a coupon that and set the expiry time for 11:59 PM. You would free yourself from remembering to shut the coupon and also not giveaway more.

This is very much useful during Black Friday or any sale. Promote the coupon well in advance and show a timer for the offer to create scarcity among your audiences, prompting them to buy at the earliest.

Bulk generate WooCommerce coupons for deal sites

Generate a bunch of coupons, each having a unique coupon code and restrictions, and export them to a CSV file. When you share this CSV file with the Deals site, they can issue one coupon to each purchaser.

Free gifts or giveaways using a coupon

Best for stock clearance, new product launch, and giveaways.

Instead of a discount, a product can be redeemed for the coupon code. Hence, when a coupon is applied successfully, the product or gift is automatically added to the cart and the customer may continue shopping or checkout normally.

Offer a higher value coupon at a lower price

A $450 credit coupon at $400. Here, you are giving an additional $50 store credit to your customers. So, you have already pocketed a $400 customer if they buy it.

The point to be noted here is…acquiring a $400 customer is more profitable at the expense of $50 credit.

Offer discount based on product quantity

If you want to offer a bulk discount or discount based on product quantity in the cart, this is quite useful. For example, apply a coupon when the cart contains any product but the minimum and maximum quantity should be three and seven respectively.

Set maximum discount limit – Get 70% Off up to $50

A smart way to nudge customers to make a purchase is by showing a big discount offer. Another smart way to not overspend by restricting the amount to be redeemed. Most widely used by grocery stores, food delivery apps…works for all industries.

Restrict WooCommerce coupons by location

For example, on 26th of December or Boxing Day, allow customers only from Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to redeem coupon on your digital products.

Sell high end product using a lower-end product

Whenever a customer buys a lower-end product, issue a coupon with it that can be redeemed only with the high-end product. This way, you are prompting customers to buy your higher-end product and pocketing more sales.

Issue multiple coupons to one or more products

Customers always like a steal. So offering multiple discounts sometimes is not a vague idea. On the contrary, it drives more and more new customers as well as keeps existing customers delighted. For example, issue a coupon of 10% discount on product A and another discount of 15% on product B.

Start getting loyal customers today

Coupons serve as a solid conversion bait, enticing more customers to make purchases, especially when paired with smart coupon types.

The process of creating these coupons is simple and straightforward with Smart Coupons plugin as demonstrated above.

So all you need is Smart Coupons, the reliable and human support-backed WooCommerce plugin to boost your revenue and get loyal customers.

Get Smart Coupons plugin now