New and Improved Coupons Are Here!

Client coupons have always been one of the most used and popular marketing features with our photographers here at Photostockplus. They are a fantastic way to promote your business and entice new and repeat customers to purchase your images and custom photo gift items. And who are we kidding, everyone likes a little freebie once in a while am I right ...

We have taken this popular feature and kicked it up a notch giving you added flexibility and control over even more details than ever before! Take a look at the bottom screenshot of the new coupon creation page which includes 2 new highlighted features which will be explained in this post:

Minimum Order Capability

One of the comments we've received from our users is that they wanted to be able to set a minimum order before clients can redeem a coupon. Consider the wait over. The first of the 2 new fields we will be discussing is a minimum order amount field:

This custom field allows you to set a dollar value as the minimum order needed in order for a client to use the coupon. For example; if you create a new coupon with a value of $10 and enter a minimum order value of $50, clients will only be able to use these coupons on orders with a total amount of $50 or more.

If you do not wish to place a minimum order amount, you may leave this field blank. You should take into consideration however that anyone would be able to use a $10 coupon on an order of $10 or a few pennies more which a fair chunk of it would probably be actual product and shipping cost with a small portion of it your actual profit. In this case, you would loose money on such an order by providing these types of coupons.

To avoid this, we suggest always using this minimum order amount and setting it a few times that of the actual coupon value, making sure the coupon can never surpass your profit and put you in a situation of loosing money on an order.

Minimum order amounts are a great way to encourage larger orders from your clients and the small discount will easily be worth that big order!

Unlimited Use Coupons

Previously, each coupon you would create would generate a unique coupon code. No two clients would be able to use the same coupon code for different orders.

While this helps in controlling your coupons, this can also limit things on a larger scale. As an example, if you are at an event and would like to pass around printed coupons to the audience, each coupon would have had to have a unique code printed on it making mass printing and coupon creating a nightmare.

With this new feature, you can now set a coupon as an 'unlimited use' coupon which will create a single code with the same parameters making it easy to distribute and re-use as many times as you want without having to re-create individual coupons or keep track of hundreds of codes:

When creating a coupon, simply tick the box to set the coupon as 'unlimited use'. In this situation, the 'quantity' field must remain as '1' since only 1 code will be generated. If you set a different value for 'quantity', the system will automatically set it back to '1' so really, there is no way to mess this up :)

This feature is perfect for larger scale event photographers or even on a smaller scale where you may see yourself creating the same type of coupon over and over again.

One thing to keep in mind with this feature is that the 'minimum order amount' field is very important. As mentioned previously, you always want each coupon to assure only being applied in a situation that is profitable for you. Setting the minimum order amount a few times that of the actual coupon value should do the trick. Not setting these values can run you into trouble. For example, with an unlimited-use coupon of $20 and no minimum value set, a client can split up a $100 order into 5 orders and apply the coupon to each one, making his shopping spree completely free! This is easily avoidable by making it a habit of always setting an appropriate minimum order value.

We hope you enjoy the new features and as always, your feedback and suggestions are more than welcome so feel free to comment on this post or email us directly if there is a feature or function you would like to see added to Photostockplus!

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