Coupons Codes

Is there any way to add a coupon code? I want to give 50% off to all orders placed by Feb 28th for anything ordered on my site, houseboatgraphics.com. Is there any way to do this without editing all the pricing? I would like the have the customer enter in a code at checkout, for example FEB50, and then the discount shows up. Please let me know any ideas you may have.

A way to create a coupon is described here:
http://support.realtimedesigner.com/forum/read.php?5,1969

That tutorial should be clear: as I tried to really explain it step-by-step, it appears to be longer and more complicated than how it is.
I will just need some work to apply the rules to your pricing matrices, but it will worth the time: once a rule is assigned, you simply need to act on the extvar or the rule itself in order to activate/deactivate it.

So, this job will need to be done only once and it will cover also eventual future needs of adding coupons.

Okay, so that discounted coupon worked great, but now I want to do $50 off an order of $250 or more, is this possible? I see where to do the $50 off, but not the $250 or more. Also, I notice that it is taking more than $50 off the order. For example, on my boat striping section it is taking $200 off (they are sold as a set of 2). There are two variables in this pricing structure, but I only applied it to one of the variables, and it is still taking off more than $50. I want to make sure that it is not going to take $50 off of every item, as it should only take it off of one item one time. How do I set a limit to this $50 off per order?

To avoid the discount rule to... "disocunt too much", I'd say a good idea would be to apply it only to RAW PRODUCT BASEPRICE addons. Those kind of addons are applied only once, and so they're perfect for a global $50 off.
Other fields could be added multiple time depending on the numbers of colors in the design, the number of letters, etc...

Just an example to be extremely clear.
When you apply a rule, one of the options is the group of the system pricing values, which includes various entries. Normally, they are:

add 1 color
full color
system clipart
custom clipart
per letter

Now: a rule is applied on each unit and for every field you have the rule assigned to.
If your rule applies a fixed value as -50, applying the rule to the group above would actually result in -250, because the rule is applied 5 times (one per each field).
And, if your minimum qty is 2, being the rule applied on each unit, the total disocunt of such rule would be -500.

So, when the goal is a fixed discount on the entire price, better to apply against the RAW addon only.
However, as it is still applied for each unit, if you sell them only as set of 2 you want to assign -25 as the fixed modifier of the rule. So, final result calculated against 2 pieces would be the expected -50


The other question you asked is the interesting one.
That would assume the rule to be applied only if the final price is $250 or more, but this is not possible when talking about rules. Rules only applies at single pricing field level, and they have no knowledge of the final price simple because... final price is given by the sum of values after applying the rules themselves. Would cause a sort of infinite loop.

But looking at your specific product, it looks like you're using the interpolated method to calculate the price.
Considering what I wrote above, what about applying the -25 rule to a RAW PRODUCT BASEPRICE addon only to matrixes that would return a minimum of $250 themselves?
Using interpolation you can set also "in between" matrixes, and if your fixed qty is 2, all you would need to do is to add a matrix returning $125 each, and apply the rule only to BASEPRICE addon from that matrix over.

Uh, sorry for the math here... makes sense?

I wanted to use this generic coupon for all products, but it seems that will not work because some are sold in sets of two, and some are not. Also, not all products are over $250. so if I were to use it just on the striping, can you please explain a bit more on the between matrixes in the interpolation? See your quote below:

"Using interpolation you can set also "in between" matrixes, and if your fixed qty is 2, all you would need to do is to add a matrix returning $125 each, and apply the rule only to BASEPRICE addon from that matrix over."

So basically for the coupons my options are either a percentage off certain or all products, or a dollar amount off, but I cannot specify any minimum or maximum, correct? Are there any other options I should know about?

There are reallt no other options you should know about, sorry.
% or dollar amounts of rules are just modifiers for single pricing items, but can't be related to a min/max because at their level there's still no knowledge about the final price. It's just as saying that, if you have the "add 1 color" value that should be $4, then that $4 is then only known value to the modifier when it's being applied to the "add 1 color" value.
Allowing rules to be applyed depending on a final price mix/max would be extremely cooplicated, because other rules could alter the price as well... and so the problem would be how to determine if the final price was REALLY into that range, or if it falled into the range because of other rules.
We may add something similar in future, but in this case I cannot promise any deadline.

About my quote: when using interpolation you basicalle set 2 or more matrices.
Suppose you create a "10" matrix returning a value of $1 and a "100" matrix returning $10.
If designed size by customer is 40, then the shown price to him using interpolation would be $4.
Bu you can add other matrices in the between. For example, you could add a "40" matrix returning $4, and result would just be as if you've added nothing.
So, in case you set 3 matrices (10,40 and 100), interpolation would only use the surrounding 2. If customer is designing a size of 50, price will be interpolated between matrix 40 and 100; if 20, between 10 and 40.

this means you could add "in between" matrices that will really not alter the main price: but that could be useful if you need to tweak the value of some specific addon only from a specific size over. My suggestion in this case was to apply the rule only to all matrices which would return a value greater that your desired minimum

Okay, got it, thanks. Maybe this can be something we can do in the future?

Coupon codes are still so hard to understand and program alex. Mark, if you can make a video explaining this then it would help us all.

And could there be a menu section that says "Coupon and Discounts"...and we can configure by user, limit by purchase ammounts, limit by expire dates...etc? Most carts have this as a standard feature now days.

Hi. So I have been working away on this coupon thing, and I get it now, well kind of. So I did some workarounds to my $50 of $250 or more. I have it work great on the striping, I do $25 each, as they are sold in a set of two. However, on a few other products, like flags and liferings, I want the discount to apply if you order two, as that order would be over $250. I applied it to my external variables rules to the "two" box, and now when I go to check pricing on the designer, it says to submit for quote. I don't get it. It works on striping, just not on flags, boat names or life rings. Am I missing something obvious here? Please help!

I tried your designer for boat names, specifically a 33x48 size (falling precisely into the 1584 matrix).
But I saw no submit for quote, seems correct to me.
Can you please tell me a precise product/size/quantity I may try to see the issue happening?

Hi Alex. I kind of figured it out, but I gave up the idea since it will not work with all my products. It seems that I cannot do with it exactly what I want since some items are ordered in sets of two, and some in one, so I just added upon checkout a coupon code section so I can rebate them after they order.

I do have two other questions though. 1. Can I download a design saved by a user even if the user did not place an order? A lot of times my clients want to see the striping or boat name on their boat, and I want to ba able to do that for them. I particularly would like to download a vector copy.

My other question if this. For the Lifering products, I just received an order, and I cannot download it to look like the product at all, it needs to be redone. Am I missing something on this? If text is distorted can I not download it correctly? It is my order # 0000119224.

Please help!!!

Saved designs: you can access them from your "Manage Registered Users" page.
And once the user is identified, you can even reimport in designer by clicking the "view thumbs" page.
But you can only get the designer size version, only sent orders can be sent to the vector output.
In any case, for a simple virtual sample that size should be enough.

As for order # 0000119224, I confirm that "issue". It's known. Vector does not supports distorion effects so far, so vectors orders using such effects needs to be edited.
Generally, the very fastest way to do so is creating the vector, downloading also the "Designer size PNG version", and use it as a BG image to recreate quickly the needed distortions on the vector itself.
Unfortunately those nice effects are created as rasters while in designer, so it's not always possible to covert them one-to-one to vectors. On the other hand, limiting only the effects that can be vectorized properly would require to remove all of the distortions.
So, recreating the distortion by using the raster image as a reference is probably the better average solution between effects you can offer to your customers and outputs you can recreate pretty fast

I just want a simple coupon code made up for the contents of my cart, and set it at a percentage of say 20%.

Alex, I've seen your tutorial for the coupon code and it's great, highly detailed, and very well written. You can tell there is quite a lot of flexibility to be had. However it is confusing for me overall.

I just want to keep mine real simple. 15-20% off cart contents. How do I do that? I think there should be a basic tutorial, and then maybe an advanced one.

That's probably because I'm a developer.. unable to write simple things
Applying to entire cart contents means applying to every entry of your pricing matrix.

So, the way is to create the external variable, create the discount rule, and apply that rule to all of your pricing matrix entries.
A quick step-by-step guide:

1) go In PRODUCT CONFIGURATOR OPTIONS => Manage/Define External Variables
2) Add a new variable named "coupon_code" and set both Show in cart as coupon code and Expire With Submittal to yes
3) click on top the Manage/Define External Variables Rules link
4) add a rule with:
Rule Name: discound_fullcart
Rule Desc: 20% off
Source Variable: coupon_code
Checkvalue: MyCouponCode
Modifier: 0
% Modifier: -20
5) open a product with PRODUCT OPTIONS => Configure Products => [your product] => Configure Pricing Structure
6) click the Apply External Variables Rules button
7) enable the discound_fullcart rule for all of the visible values
8) repeat 5-6-7 for all the products you want to be affected by the discount rule

That's basically it. Once done, the customer will see in cart a coupon code area.
If he will enter the MyCouponCode value, rule will become active and, with this setup, would apply a -20% to every used price value.
If in future you want to change the discount, you can edit the rule and edit the modifier.
If you think you'll want multiple discount codes (for example, one for -15% and one for -20%), just create another rule and assign that too to all of your products.

For this reason, it could be a good idea to create a couple "zero rules" (so rules with ZERO modifiers that will not affect pricings) and assign them all when performing steps 5-6-7 the first time.
In other words, have them already there as placeholders, so it will be very quick to add multiple codes in case you'll ever need them.

Hope it makes more sense, this time.
If it does and you'll be able to do what you needed, may I ask for a little help?
For simple tutorials I always felt something written from a user's point of view was better than something written by a developer or a technician in general. Would be amazing if you could write down an "easier to be read" version of this one and post in the Tutorials board.

Let me know, thanks!

Alex, Thank you soo much! I really REALLY don't think it could be easier to create a basic discount code with the document that you just made. I hope you add that to the wiki and other docs because it's perfect.



Thanks again!

Woah. This means I can still talk to humans!
Posted here, in the tutorials section.
Mark will probably add this to the Wiki when possible.

Thanks!

Hello All.

Is there any way to grant a ONE TIME discount for new customers? Then that particular extvar rule thing would not be available for future orders. Can this happen automatically?

thanks, jack

Not really.
But we need to look at it from the system's point of view.
An order is an order, no matter who placed it. So a rule like that would be like "allow this code one time only" rather than "allow this code one time only for new customers".

In other words, such a rule would allow that code to be used one time only, no matter who the user is.
This means that, even with such a feature available, you would still need to create a distinct specialcode for each new customer: otherwise, the 2nd "new customer" trying it would get no discount at all because the rule expired after 1st new customer's usage.

Moreover, unless he's also registered and logged in, RTD cannot know if the customer is the same one. So this makes impossible to assign a rule like "only for a customer's 1st order"

At this point (just a thought), probably better to really create multiple rules with codes to be emailed to new customers if they want the discount. This could also be a way to get new contact details from your visitors, which could help in doing your marketing.