Overview
In general, you should choose the promotion you want to use based upon the actions that are available. An action is what gets applied to an order to change one or more aspects of it, based upon the qualifications in the promotion being true. For example, you might have a coupon code that is intended to reward the customer with free shipping. The action is what makes the shipping free. A promotion may have one or many actions, depending on the kind of promotion being used.
Requirements
The following prerequisites will be necessary to accomplish the goals of this article:
- Have access to your Hotcakes store administration
- Understand how promotions work
Getting Started
If you haven't already worked with promotions in the past or haven't read the promotions documentation, you should do that first.
Working with Actions
You'll find actions on the right side of any promotion you're working with, like shown below.
Actions
Depending on the kind of promotion you're working with, the available actions you see may be different. For example, if you're creating a sale, you'll see much different options versus a promotion for shipping.
The various actions you might see are discussed below. Each action is discussed as if it were the only action in the promotion.
Sales
Sales are a bit different from all other promotions. They usually don't require that the customer do anything before the promotion can be applied. These are useful for things like black friday or other holiday sales, where you're just discounting one or many products without having the customer do much.
Action | Description |
Discount Product Price | Here you can specify the amount that the product(s) will be discounted, by either percentage, or a specific amount. You should use the correct number format, based upon the type of discount you intend to apply. If you wish for the amount to truly be a discount, be sure to place a minus symbol (-) before the number, such as -10 to deduct 10% or $10.00. |
Offers for Order Items
If you're wanting to conditionally discount specific line items in an order, this offer allows you to do that.
Action | Description |
Adjust Qualifying Items | Here you can specify the amount that the product(s) will be discounted, by either percentage, or a specific amount. You should use the correct number format, based upon the type of discount you intend to apply. If you wish for the amount to truly be a discount, be sure to place a minus symbol (-) before the number, such as -10 to deduct 10% or $10.00. |
Make Qualifying Items Free Shipping | Using this method, you can specify that any of the shipping methods you specify will be free. The customer still much choose that shipping method during checkout though. |
Discount Category | This action allows you to discount products in the specified category(ies) when the promotion applies. Like with discounting specific products, you can choose to discount a flat amount or percentage, and you should be sure to use the minus symbol (-) when discounting. |
Offers for Free Items
You've heard it countless times, "Buy X and get X for free!" This is the promotion type that allows you to do this in your store.
Action | Description |
Receive Free Product | This action will allow you to use the product picker control to specify which products you wish to give away for free in this promotion, and how many of each product you're giving away. |
Please Note: You'll only be able to select products that don't have choices. This is currently the intended behavior, as your customers wouldn't be able to have a chance to select the choice(s) that they prefer.
Offers for Subtotal
The actions in this promotion will modify the order amount.
Action | Description |
Discount Order Total | Here you can specify the amount that the order subtotal will be discounted, by either percentage, or a specific amount. You should use the correct number format, based upon the type of discount you intend to apply. If you wish for the amount to truly be a discount, be sure to place a minus symbol (-) before the number, such as -10 to deduct 10% or $10.00. |
Offers for Shipping
This promotion type allows you to take action on the shipping aspect of an order.
Action | Description |
Discount Shipping By... | Here you can specify the amount that the order subtotal will be discounted, by either percentage, or a specific amount. You should use the correct number format, based upon the type of discount you intend to apply. If you wish for the amount to truly be a discount, be sure to place a minus symbol (-) before the number, such as -10 to deduct 10% or $10.00. |
Affiliate Promotions
Affiliate promotions allow you to reward existing or new affiliates for joining the affiliate program.
Action | Description |
Issue Reward Points | Specify whether you want to reward the affiliate or the referral, and the amount of points you wish to reward. If you want to reward them both, simply add another action. |
Need More Help?
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