Can I do product specific coupons?

[jxm28788]

I need a way of giving a specific customer a specific coupon code that will give them a specific discount on a specific product - is that possible with actinic?

eg. type in coupon code 'yourdiscount' to get £15.95 off a 'Sony X1000 DVD Player'

[Bruce]

The only way I can see of achieving this would be to create several product groups which contain specific products. You can then create a coupon which is limited to a specific product group and since it contains only one product it will only apply to that product.

Kind regards,

[jxm28788]

if I had 3000 products could I create 3000 product groups or would that just cause actinic to fall over and die?

[Bruce]

I could not honestly tell you what will happen sa we have not tested with 3000 product groups. I guess you could try, make a copy of the database and then do the import of the product groups etc.

Kind regards,

[jont]

if I had 3000 products could I create 3000 product groups or would that just cause actinic to fall over and die?

You would not necessarily need that many product groups as you could standardise the discount structure and add multiple products to the group. This would allow the user to use the code on more than 1 product which may not be a bad thing (up selling additional products) or could be a nuisance depending on the exact nature of the promotion.

[jxm28788]

The problem that I have is that I have a price match guarantee, and I want to be able to handle this on the site (as opposed to refunding an amount to the customers credit card later on).

So if a customer e-mails me and says "I saw product A somewhere else for £4.25 cheaper, but I want to buy from you, can you match it?", what I need is to be able to e-mail them a product code that will give them £4.26 or whatever off the price of product A.

Now I could just give them a voucher for that amount valid for one day only, but that way there is nothing to stop them using the voucher against a different product... or giving it to all their friends...

So is there a more sensible way of doing this? Or no sensible way of doing it at all?

[jont]

Thinking on the fly how about setting up a customer account, setting the logged in price for the product and emailing the customer the account name and password - they will log in and see the special price????

[jxm28788]

Thinking on the fly how about setting up a customer account, setting the logged in price for the product and emailing the customer the account name and password - they will log in and see the special price????

off the top of my head that seems kind of clever (and a good way to encourage accounts)... but don't accounts require lots of address info and stuff by default?

[jont]

It is the flip side of generating additional codes and groups etc ... on the bonus side the user has all their details already entered - making them feel extra special and loved and possibly more likely to make the purchase if they don't have to complete part of the checkout sequence... you know how lazy buyers can be

[Mike Hughes]

for one-offs, price match etc, I have a separate page where I just put a copy of the original product at the price-match price. I usually add that the price match is only valid for 7 days or whatever and after that I remove it.

If the customer tells everyone else about the page then you get some free publicity and extra orders.

Mike

Edit: just to add some more details. The price match page has no links to it (other than the site map) and I email the link to the customer so they can find it.

[jxm28788]

you know how lazy buyers can be

yes I know they are lazy, which is why it would be good to create their account for them - but at that point I wouldn't know any of their details...

[jxm28788]

for one-offs, price match etc, I have a separate page where I just put a copy of the original product at the price-match price. I usually add that the price match is only valid for 7 days or whatever and after that I remove it.

hmmm... that could work... I'll have a think about that...