15 Ways to Create Exciting Promotions with Cart-Level Discount in BigCommerce

The power of cannot be dismissed. Merchants are flexible to run many different types of promotional discounts, gifts and free shipping based on customer’s product choices and order value, all defined by merchants without using any third-party apps. In this article, we will discover 15 ways you can create exciting promotions and flash sales with BigCommerce’s cart-level discount and coupon tools:

• Free Shipping
• Free Gift
• Discount

It’s worth noting that these discount and coupon rules are still limited to some extent. We will also address the most common limitations and might suggest some work-arounds (if available).

Free Shipping

1- Spend a minimum of $X on cart value, get free shipping:

This is one of the most simple and popular store-wide promotions that most online stores apply to increase average order value.

2- Buy at least X items of product A, get free shipping:

Limitations: The X items bought must be of the same product A. You cannot offer free shipping if customers:

• Buy X items of any products in store
• Buy X items of products in a specific category/brand in store

Free Gift

3- Buy X get Y free (same product)

This is the powerful BOGO (buy one get one) feature that almost any store owner would want to have in their eCommerce engine. BigCommerce’s built-in BOGO makes it so easy and intuitive to create free gift offers to your customers, as below:

For BOGO, the main items and the free items are of the same product.

4- Buy X units of product A, get Y units of product B for free:

Similar to BOGO, BOGSE (buy one get something else) is also support in BigCommerce’s product discount rules. You can offer customers Y items of a product for free if customers buy X items of the target product (which is different from the products given for free).

5- Buy X items in 1 category, get Y addition items in the same category for free:

Similar to BOGSE, this promotion gives you the ability to give aways products that are different from the target product, but in the same category.

6- Spend at least $X in cart, get a product for free:

Another common type of free-gift promotions that most store owners frequently run is offering a free product if customers spend a minimum cart value.

Limitations: you can only choose one product as the free gift, instead of choosing a list of different products store-wide or in specific categories in this case. Tips: Try app to offer a range of free gifts if customers spend at least $X incart:

To help you promote the promotion, A small notification widget will show on website corner to let customers know that they need to spend more to get a special offer:

Discount

7- Spend a minimum of $X on cart value, get $Y or Y% discount on cart subtotal:

This is another popular site-wide promotion that most stores apply to increase average order value.

8- Offer multi-tier $ or % off discount to the cart subtotal based on order value:

Offering higher discount rates to different cart value levels works effectively to motivate shoppers to spend more. Let’s say you want to increase your AVO to $250, you can offer pretty small discount percentage on substotal lower than $250, and offer a tempting higher discount percentage on substotal of $250 at the minimum. Here’s how to create such a multi-level discount in BigCommerce:

9- Spend at least $X on cart, get 1 unit of product Y for $ or % off:

In many cases, you might want to offer discount on a specific product if customers reach a minimum cart value. This option allows you to do so, though you cannot choose many products to offer discount.

10- Offer discount on the most/least expensive item(s) in cart if customers spend a minimum value:

Of many ways to incentivise customers to increase their order value, offering them a discount on the most/least expensive item(s) is a good option when compared to discount on cart substotal, as you can save a bit on the discount amount.

11- Offer $ or % discount to items in specific brands:

This option allows discount promotions to items within specific brands. You can offer one discount for multiple brands in one rule, or create separate rules for each brand. Discount is applied to all items under target brands.

12- Offer $ or % discount to items in specific categories:

Similar to discount to all items under specific brands, this option allows you to offer $ or % discount to all items in specific categories:

13-Offer multi-tier $ or % discount to products in specific categories, based on the number of items purchased.

This promotion is quite similar to the multi-tier $ or % discount to cart subtotal, except that it is only applicable to products under target categories. Note that this discount type is on product level. For example: if you have 3 products under target category A and 4 other products under non-target categories in cart, a $5 discount will be applied to all 3 products, bringing the total discount value to $15.

Limitations: you cannot put a cap on the total discount amount, or the maximum of items that can get discount applied.

14- Buy (X units) of Product A, get (Y units) of Product B for $ or % off per unit:

An example that this promotion can be applied to is: Buy 2 T-shirts to get a maximum of 2 leggings for $10 of each unit. Tips: Offer 100% off the promotion product if you want to give it for free.

Note that the discount in this promotion is on product level, not cart substotal.

15- Exclusive discount for repeat customers:

To increase revenue, you don’t always have to gain new traffic and convert them into first-time buyers. It’s sometime more cost-efficient to sell more to your current customers by motivating them to make repeat orders regularly. BigCommerce’s customer discount allows you to give $ or % discount on subsequent order if customers make at least X orders on your store.

Limitations: For all discount rules, there is currently no option to exclude “sale” items from coupons so no further discount is allowed to items already on sale.

Wrap Up

With BigCommerce’s cart-level discount, you don’t have a third-party app to run promotional campaigns with ease and flexibility. However, cart-level discount and coupon features seem to be never-ending topics to discuss in BigCommerce communities, as merchants need even more flexibility to drive conversion and sales. BigCommerce is taking seriously, counting votes to decide which features to be planned and released in the future.

Originally published at on May 17, 2018.