How to Add a Discount Code on WooCommerce and Invoice

Almost 90% of online shoppers use coupons or discount codes when shopping online.

Why wouldn’t they? Everyone loves discounts, special offers, or free stuff.

After all, a penny saved is a penny earned, right?

Even if someone has loads of money to burn, they’ll still love to get some discounts on their purchases. Coupons do have this psychological effect on shoppers.

As a WooCommerce store owner, you will want to attract new visitors and convert them into loyal returning customers. Coupons are a great way to beat your competition and earn loyal traffic.

In this article, we will discuss the benefits of the WooCommerce discount code and learn how to add a discount code on WooCommerce.

Let’s dive in.

Why use WooCommerce discount code

It has been known for a very long time that offering discounts have an effect on the psychology of customers, and despite the fact that we are moving into an era of unprecedented convenience and digitization, this fact has not changed.

We have tons of statistics to back up this claim. Let’s check some of them out.

• 92% of consumers who shop online look for promotional codes or coupons before making a purchase.
• By 2022, it is projected that more than $90 billion will have been redeemed through the use of digital coupons.
• By 2027, the global market for mobile coupons is expected to reach $14.8 trillion.
• An estimated 86% of millennials said a coupon discount could get them to switch brands.
• Shoppers who use online coupons spend 24% more than those who don’t.
• 68% of consumers are under the impression that using digital coupons encourages brand loyalty.
• 74% of customers followed the brands’ social media accounts in the hope of finding discount coupons.

Source: Spendmenot

The psychology that lies behind the appeal of discounts goes beyond simply saving a few dollars. The following are some of the most important ways in which discounts offered by coupons influence the behaviors of customers.

Keeps your customers away from your competition

93% of today’s consumers who shop online do price comparisons before making a purchase of a product or service.

That’s why it’s so important to offer promotional deals like a WooCommerce discount code to encourage consumers to make a purchase rather than continue looking for a better offer elsewhere.

If a coupon deal is sufficiently appealing and easily accessible, there is a greater likelihood that the consumer will complete the purchase. Thus, the WooCommerce discount code can be the best CRO strategy for your store to grow faster.

Helps in trust-building

Discounts can help build trust with customers as long as businesses don’t artificially inflate their prices and then offer ridiculously low sales prices (such as selling an item for $15 instead of $350).

Customers almost always take discounts at face value, assuming they are being offered a fair deal and not being scammed. Providing reasonable discounts fosters confidence and trust, which in turn increases customer loyalty.

Makes your customers happy

According to Claremont University research, getting something for less than it would normally cost triggers the release of the feel-good hormone oxytocin, which in turn makes your customers feel happy.

As a result, this can improve consumers’ perceptions of the company and boost the likelihood that they will buy from you again.

Coupons create a sense of urgency

According to an article published in Psychology Today, one of the main factors in how promotional discounts motivate consumers to make purchases is the nagging feeling of ‘anticipatory regret,’ or the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO).

Customers may experience anticipatory regret even if the sale is not promoted as a limited-time offer because, if the price cut is appealing enough, they may worry that they will regret passing it up later.

How to add a discount code on WooCommerce

Before you learn how to add a discount code on WooCommerce, make sure you enable WooCommerce coupons from the settings.

Go to your WordPress admin panel and then jump to WooCommerce>>Settings>>General settings. Scroll down to find the Coupon section.

Click on the Enable the use of coupon codes option and save the changes.

Creating discount code in WooCommerce

Now go to Marketing>>Coupons.

Here you can see there’s a button for creating your first WooCommerce discount code. Click on it to start WooCommerce create discount code. It will take you to your add new coupon page.

In the first box, you need to input your unique WooCommerce discount code. Customers will need to use this code in order to be eligible for the discount that goes along with it.

This code is used by WooCommerce as an identifier, so it must be unique.

You can also use the WooCommerce discount code generator button to automatically create a code for you.

When you click the button, WooCommerce will generate a lengthy, cryptic code made up of seemingly random characters. This may make it harder for consumers to guess your coupons.

You can also create the WooCommerce discount code manually yourself. This will let you make coupons that are shorter, simpler, and easier to share. You could also develop codes that indicate what the coupon is about.

For example, you can name your WooCommerce discount code: ElevenEleven, BLACKFRIDAY, etc.

It’s a good idea to add a description for the WooCommerce discount code, especially when you use auto-generated coupon codes. That way, you or your store admins can recognize what the coupon is for.

You can put an end date on a coupon when you create it. This makes sure that people can’t keep using this coupon forever. With the Coupon expiry date field, you can set a time limit.

In order to make a coupon, you must first go through these fundamental procedures. Next, we will check out different types of coupons we can create on WooCommerce.

Percentage discount

You can offer a discount on any and all WooCommerce products sold in your store by making use of percentage coupons. This type of discount is calculated as a percentage of the total cost of the item being purchased.

Your store’s higher-priced items will be more appealing to customers if you offer a percentage-off discount. The more your customer spends in your store, the greater the discount will be, thanks to that WooCommerce discount code.

For example, if your WooCommerce discount code offers a 10% discount, your customer will get a discount of $3 on $30 purchases. However, if they buy $300 worth of items, they will save $30 using the code.

To create a percentage discount, click on the Discount type dropdown field and select the Percentage discount option.

In the Coupon amount field, input the percentage amount you want to offer. But you don’t need to enter the percentage symbol. WooCommerce will detect that automatically according to your discount type selection.

Fixed cart discount

Offering a discount proportional to the customer’s cart total is known as a fixed cart discount. This makes sure that the discount is always in line with the amount the customer spends.

You can entice your customers to spend more money in general by offering them fixed cart discounts. The more item they add, the bigger the discount amount gets.

You can stack cart discounts with other promotions if you like. You could, for instance, offer free shipping once a customer’s cart total reaches a certain threshold amount, in addition to a fixed discount coupon.

This is a tightrope act, but it can pay off if executed properly. You can get customers to spend more money so that they can take advantage of both discounts.

To create a WooCommerce fixed cart discount, go back to your coupon page and from the Discount type dropdown field, select the Fixed cart discount option.

In the coupon amount field, enter your discount percentage amount.

Fixed product discount

WooCommerce also allows you to create discount codes for specific products or product categories. This can be helpful for making seasonal or holiday-themed or stock clearance sales.

For instance, if you want to run a sale promotion to clear your inventory before you stock new products, you can offer special discounts on the existing products or product categories.

Any store will do this as a matter of course, particularly at the beginning and end of each season when they are trying to sell off their old stock.

You can also use this method to promote your new products as well.

Taking advantage of current market trends is yet another common tactic. You can use Google Trends to track the popularity of particular products in online searches.

When you see an uptick in interest in a particular product, you can boost sales by providing a special discount just for that item.

To create this type of WooCommerce discount code, you first need to select the option from the dropdown and input your discount amount.

After that, you need to go to the Usage restriction tab and select your product or product category.

To assign a product, enter at least three characters, and WooCommerce will show you available matching products in a dropdown. Alternatively, you can select a category instead of specific products.

You can also exclude specific products or categories/sub-categories from the discount offer.

Signup fee discount

This option will particularly interest you if you own a WooCommerce membership website. A subscription-based membership site can have a significant impact on your WooCommerce store growth.

You will be able to generate recurring revenues, create a loyal community of shoppers within your website, and boost your email marketing. Overall, a membership site can play a vital role in building a loyal returning customer base and growing a trustworthy brand.

You can offer a WooCommerce discount code to your new members. They will be able to redeem this code when registering a new account with you. However, this should be a one-time offer.

To create the coupon, select Sign Up Fee Discount from the discount type dropdown field. Then enter your fixed discount amount for the new members.

Now you need to jump to the Usage limits tab and set the usage limits for the coupon and for per user.

As this is a one-time-only coupon, you need to set the Usage limit per coupon and also the Usage limit per user to 1.

Signup fee percentage discount

If you want to offer a percentage discount instead of offering a fixed amount, then you can use this option. Your new members will enjoy your defined percentage discount on the total signup fee.

The process is pretty similar to other ones. Select Sign Up Fee % Discount from the dropdown and enter your WooCommerce discount code amount.

WooCommerce will automatically assign a percentage to the amount.

Recurring product discount

If you have a WooCommerce membership or subscription-based website, you must be familiar with the term ‘recurring.’

If you offer monthly membership plans or product bundle packages where members need to renew their membership plan or package after fixed intervals like monthly, quarterly, or yearly, then you can offer discounts through this type of WooCommerce discount code.

Select the Recurring Product Discount from the dropdown and enter your fixed discount amount.

You can set the limit on how many times a member will get a discount using this code on their renewals from the Usage limits tab.

Recurring percentage discount

Besides the fixed recurring product discount, you can also offer progressive percentage discounts.

You can offer discounts based on user roles or product bundles your member purchases. The more they upgrade, the higher the discount will be.

For example, suppose you offer a subscription that costs $200 each month, and you want your customers to pay less after six months and earn an additional discount after a year of service.

You are offering the option of deducting 5% from the cost of the initial subscription when the plan is renewed after the first six months and another 5% when it is renewed after the first year.

Once that happens, your subscribers will pay you:

• Spend only $200 total over the course of a five-month subscription (the first purchase and each subsequent renewal cost $200).
• After the initial six-month commitment, the price per month is $190.
• Starting in the 12th month, it will cost them $180/month.

The renewal price can also be raised incrementally.

You could also create role-based discounts, whereby anyone with the Subscriber role would be eligible for a price reduction if they subscribed to a second subscription service.

Again go ahead and select the Recurring Product % Discount from the dropdown.

However, for the advanced progressive percentage discounts, we showed above, you may need to use a third-party extension such as the Discounts for WooCommerce Subscriptions.

Free shipping

• 90% of people would shop online more often if they could get free shipping.
• 24% of shoppers would spend more just to get free shipping.
• If an item comes with free shipping, 73% more people will choose to buy it.

Source: SaveMyCent

Stats like these speaks volume about why you would want to offer multiple shipping options in WooCommerce, including free shipping.

To start the process, click on the Allow free shipping radio button to enable the option and publish the coupon.

Now you need to specify the region/regions where you want to offer the free shipping WooCommerce discount code.

Go to WooCommerce>>Shipping>> Shipping zones and select the zone to which you want to offer the discount.

You can choose to create a whole new zone and assign a free shipping method to it or edit an existing one. After you create your zone, click on the Edit button in the shipping methods section.

From the Free Shipping Requires dropdown select the A minimum order amount OR a coupon option.

Now you can pick the coupon you made in the last step. Depending on what you choose, you might have to enter some more information.

For instance, you can specify how much customers need to spend to get free shipping. By setting a free shipping threshold, you can often get customers to spend more money.

Usage Restrictions

We have already had a quick look at this tab when creating product-specific discounts. The usage restriction tab lets you set some restrictions on the usage of your coupons.

Greedy customers won’t be able to take advantage of your coupons in this way. This allows you to make use of WooCommerce discounts without jeopardizing your income.

You could also put limits on customers’ purchases to get them to spend more. For example, if you set a minimum spend, customers may add more items to their carts so they can get the coupon.

You can set a minimum, and maximum spend amount from the dedicated fields.

If you enable the Individual use only option, customers won’t be able to use this promotion in conjunction with any other discounts. If you’re offering multiple discounts and don’t want customers to be able to use multiple coupons for the same purchase, this option may come in handy.

You can also stop people from using a coupon on something that is already on sale. This can help you make sure you always get a fair price for your goods. To set this limit, check the box next to Exclude sale items.

Apply discount code in WooCommerce

Now that we have checked all available and possible WooCommerce discount code creating methods let’s check if our coupon is working or not.

We have added some products to the cart. As you can see, there’s a shipping cost for the order.

Let’s apply our Free shipping coupon code in the coupon box.

Hit the Apply Coupon button and check whether anything changes or not.

There you go. As you can see, the free shipping coupon worked, and there’s a free shipping option available for the customer now.

How to promote coupons

The next step, after the WooCommerce coupon create, is to spread the word. You must promote your coupons to make sure people are aware of them and actively utilize them.

Here are some common channels where you can promote your WooCommerce discount code coupons.

Social media

Social media is by far the best place to promote your promotional events, and that also includes your coupons.

Make use of Facebook and Twitter posts and Instagram stories. Create a sense of urgency by advertising an offer that is only available for a limited time.

You can also offer special gifts/discounts to your social media followers if they share the WooCommerce discount code you are promoting.

An effective strategy for spreading the word about your coupons is to reach out to popular people (influencers) on social media. You can pay these people to share information about your product and discount codes with their followers.

Email

You can promote the coupon code to your audience through email if you have an existing email list. If you own a WooCommerce subscription-based membership website, you already have a loyal follower base whom you can email.

You can also attach the WooCommerce discount code to your auto-generated emails, such as welcome emails, thank you emails, transactional emails, etc.

Lead magnets

Make use of your website to gather email addresses by implementing a lead magnet. Display the lead magnet either immediately upon a customer’s arrival or after they’ve spent a specific amount of time on your site, or just before they click away.

For instance, you could give a 25% discount to anyone who comes to your store. They would have to give you their email address in order to get the discount coupon.

You can also offer them an additional discount of 5% off if the customer is about to leave your shop without making a purchase.

This serves two purposes: first, it helps you build your email list, which you can then use to promote future offers and coupons. And second, it helps you offer a coupon to entice the customer to make a purchase from your store.

Best WooCommerce discount code plugin

Even though the core WooCommerce plugin packs a bunch of helpful coupon generation options, it still lacks some advanced features you will surely need to develop a better coupon marketing strategy.

There are plenty of third-party WooCommerce extensions available that offer advanced coupon features for you. Here are some of the best ones:

Smart Coupons

With over 20K active installations and hundreds of 5-star reviews, Smart Coupons is one of the most popular WooCommerce discount code plugins. This extension is available in the official WooCommerce marketplace.

This plugin includes discounts, coupons, credits, vouchers, product giveaways, offers, and promotions, helping you attract and retain more customers and grow your business.

Customers have the ability to buy credits for themselves or others using this plugin.

Key features

• Improve standard WooCommerce discount codes with a plethora of additional controls and rules.
• Smart Coupons can generate hundreds of thousands of coupons, which you can add to your store, export as a CSV, and email to recipients. You can preview emails before bulk-generating.
• It is simple to offer free shipping, even through store credits, and you can adjust the restrictions as needed.
• Link creation for one or more coupons is lightning fast, and the resulting links can be shared in any online medium.
• When a customer buys a product, the plugin immediately and automatically generates and distributes coupons, store credits, gift certificates, gift cards, vouchers, and discounts for future purchases.

Price

The extension costs $99 per year.

Discounts for WooCommerce Subscriptions

We have already mentioned this extension earlier in the article. This plugin is a specialized add-on for the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin that lets you set the prices and WooCommerce discount code for recurring payments.

We have already shown with an example how to create and apply fixed or progressive percentage discounts to renewal prices. As a result to that, the longer your customers stay with you, the lesser they will have to pay.

And this plugin is what you need to achieve that.

Key features

• Discounts can be used on both simple and complex subscriptions.
• You can create two types of pricing discounts: flat rates and percentage discounts.
• The user’s account, cart, checkout, and service emails show current discounts and possible discount upgrades.
• Allows you to create a WooCommerce discount code based on user roles.
• Enables you to apply discount rules for your existing subscription plans.
• Allows you to display discount tables on product pages to explain the discount policy.

Price

Available in the official WooCommerce marketplace, this extension costs $79 per year.

Smart Coupons for WooCommerce by WebToffee

This is yet another feature-rich choice for handling discount codes in a WooCommerce shop. The coupon creation and discount configuration options are quite flexible.

Additionally, you can alter the appearance of the coupons to suit your needs. Moreover, it provides a wide variety of restriction rules that you can use to implement the optimal coupon strategy for your store.

Smart Coupons for WooCommerce by WebToffe allows you to quickly and easily create product giveaways, gift certificates, store credit, and other types of coupons in bulk.

Key features

• Facilitates the development and implementation of a sophisticated coupon strategy for your WooCommerce store.
• Use the plugin’s granularity to create one-of-a-kind discounts by imposing limits and other restrictions on coupon use.
• Allows you to create store credit and buy-one-get-one (BOGO) deals.
• You can display a countdown timer for coupon validity.
• Allows you to create coupons in bulk.

Price

It’s a premium plugin and offers a range of prices.

• Single site – $69/year.
• 5 sites – $99/year.
• Up to 25 sites – $199/year.

How to add the discount price to the invoice

WooCommerce discount code can surely allure your customers to complete the purchase. However, your job is only half done. You still need to fulfill the order.

One essential element of the order fulfillment process is creating and sending invoices. You must also need to include the discount amount in your invoices.

Unfortunately, the WooCommerce core plugin doesn’t let you create invoices. However, there are plenty of third-party advanced plugins available such as the Challan, that can do the job for you.

Challan pdf invoicing plugin

Challan is one of the best pdf invoicing plugins that can automatically generate invoices and attach them to the order confirmation emails. You can also create packing slips, shipping labels, and credit notes using this plugin.

One of the features of this plugin worth mentioning is the ability to customize the invoices extensively. You can literally customize any part of the invoice template. You can add your brand elements such as logo, custom header-footer, etc.

Of course, you can display your discount prices in the invoices using this plugin as well.

As a result, your WooCommerce invoices will increase brand value and show your professionalism, and the invoices will also serve as a marketing tool.

Challan is available for free in the WordPress repository. However, we highly recommend you purchase its pro version to enjoy all the advanced features.

Adding the discount price in the invoice

Challan Pro has a dedicated option in the settings to display the discount prices.

After you install the pro version, go to your WordPress admin panel and click on Challan>>Settings. Then click on the Invoice tab.

Scroll down to find the Discount section. Make sure you enable the Show Discounted Amount option.

That’s about it; you are done! Now Challan will automatically include the discounted amount in the invoices when applicable.

Let’s check out how Challan displays the WooCommerce discount code amount in the invoices.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Wrap up

Promo codes are a great way to attract more customers and increase your revenue. They are so ingrained in human psychology that not everyone realizes they are influencing them.

Coupons are a great tool to add to your marketing arsenal if you run a WooCommerce store.

We hope this post on how to add a discount code on WooCommerce was of help to you. Let us know if you are using any plugin or any other method to offer custom coupons or deals to your customers.