Squarespace Discount Rules
Half the battle when it comes to managing your Squarespace eCommerce website is just taking the time to learn everything that’s possible! Which is a lot! Luckily, I’ve read all the Squarespace documentation so you don’t have to :)
In this post, I’m going to walk you through the 5 steps of setting up a discount so that you know and understand all the options and what they mean. Then, I have a concise primer of all the Squarespace discount rules and exclusions. These are important to understand so that you know that 1) Squarespace has your back with controls that automatically prevent customers from stacking discounts and 2) you can plan smart promotions that you’re actually able to pull off!
Step 1
Choose Your Method
On Squarespace, there are basically two different types of discounts you can set up:
Coupon Code - offers that can be claimed with a coupon code
Automatic Discounts - don’t require a code and magically apply based on what’s in a shopper’s cart
There are good reasons to use both types but FWIW I tend to prefer automatic discounts over those that require codes because it requires less work on the customer’s part. This isn’t to say that there aren’t some times when manual discounts that require a code make a lot of sense! For example, if you’re running a targeted ad or wanting to offer something to only a select group of people using a coupon code over an automatic discount may be the way to go.
So the bottom line here is that I would use automatic discounts for things that you can market to the public on your site such as “Free shipping over $50!” Use coupon codes for situations you may want to make things seem a little more exclusive such as “$10 off for our VIP subscribers using code SD87SDFT!”
Step 2
Choose Your Promo Type
Amount Off - a flat dollar amount discount (ex: $10 off)
Percentage Off - a percentage discount (ex: 10% off)
Free Shipping - can be for any or all of the shipping methods you offer (ex: free express shipping)
Step 3
Select What Orders Your Offer Applies To
Any order - it doesn’t matter what’s in the cart or how much! Go crazy!
Orders over a certain amount - discounts only apply if the minimum order amount is met before any taxes or shipping costs are added.
Single products - apply to just one product that you specify. If you want it to apply to more than one product, use a category discount instead. Discounts for single products can come in handy if you have a new product you want to entice people to try OR if you have an old product that you’re trying to liquidate.
Product categories - apply to all products within a certain category or within multiple categories. Category discounts make it easy to apply offers to whole sections of your shop at once. If someone adds multiple items from the category that you’ve targeted, each item will receive the same discount.
Pro Tip: While shop categories are usually descriptive of the “departments” of your store, they don’t have to be! You can make a “Featured Products” category, a “Best Sellers” category, or even a “Clearance” category to make it easy to target specific items for an offer. For more on product categories check out this post.
Step 4
Set Limits
You can limit both the number of times a discount can be used in total and how many times it can be used per customer. This means that if you don’t want your discounts to have unlimited usage that you can limit usage to either one or the other of those, or both.
Unlimited - You get a discount! And you get a discount! And you get a discount! EVERYONE GETS A DISCOUNT!!!
Limit Total Uses - this counts every time the discount is used at all by anyone. Setting it to unlimited means that there’s no cap on how many times it can be used in general. For example, if you wanted to only allow the first 100 customers access to a VIP offer you could set this to 100 to create a sense of urgency and exclusivity.
Limit Per Customer - allows the discount to only be redeemed once per customer based on the email address that a customer uses at check out. This is especially handy for “Welcome” offers such as “10% off your first order of $50 more!”
Step 5
Set Expiration Date (Optional)
All discount types allow you to set an expiration date. I tend to recommend that even if your promo isn’t really time-based (i.e. 10% off all orders placed in September) that you set an expiration date of the end of the year or some other arbitrary date in the future. This just gives you a reason to go back into the discounts panel every so often to make sure you’re keeping things fresh and up to date.
Discount Limits & Rules
Now that you know all about what elements you can control when creating a discount on Squarespace, it’s important to understand what you can’t do. There are exceptions and rules to what discounts you can stack and combine to help you prevent over-discounting or creating a situation where customers can combine multiple discounts. Understanding these rules will save you the headache of dreaming up a marketing plan that you can’t actually easily pull off!
General Rules
Customers can only enter one coupon code per order
You can’t repeat coupon codes - make a new one each time even if the details are the same or similar.
Discounts apply to the subtotal amount before taxes or shipping
Discounts cannot be greater than the order total
If an order has only one product, a customer cannot combine multiple offers
If a customer tries to redeem multiple offers that aren’t compatible or an offer that is expired, they will receive an error message
Customers paying with a gift card can redeem any discounts like normal
Single Product Discount Rules
What You CAN Do:
Combine with an amount off any order offer (flat rate or percentage)
Combine with an order over offer (flat rate or percentage)
What You CAN’T Do:
Combine with a category discount
Combine multiple single product discounts
Category Discount Rules
What You CAN Do:
Combine with an amount off any order offer (flat rate or percentage)
Combine with an order over offer (flat rate or percentage)
What You CAN’T Do:
Combine multiple category discounts (for products that may be in both categories)
Flat Rate & Percentage Off Rules
If you offer both an automatic flat rate discount and an automatic percentage off discount, only the flat rate one will apply - even if it’s the smaller amount. This means that if you have multiple automatic discounts set up that could theoretically apply to the same order only the flat rate discount will be applied.
You can’t combine offers for any orders or orders over a certain amount if one of the discounts is a percentage discount.
If you do happen to have multiple automatic percentage discounts that would apply to an order, the larger of the two will be applied.
Percentage discounts can only be combined with free shipping offers.
Free Shipping Discounts
You can combine a free shipping offer with any other offer and any free shipping offers you have set up will always apply
You can limit the shipping option(s) that the discount applies to. For example, you may want to only offer free shipping for your cheapest option (like USPS Priority Mail) but still charge the full amount if someone chooses your expedited option (such as FedEx Next Day Air).
Special Notes on Discounting Memberships or Subscription Products
If you have a member area or sell subscription products on your Squarespace site, the following options are available for recurring payments:
You can choose to exclude a subscription product from a discount entirely.
You can choose to apply the discount to the first payment only (all future payments or renewals would be charged full price).
You can choose to apply the discount to all recurring payments, including the first one and all future payments/renewals.
