Define a promotion

You define a promotion by entering basic descriptive information, the buy condition and offer, and the promotion's availability.

This section applies to both OSF and Storefront Classic. This section applies to Open Storefront Framework (OSF) and Storefront Classic.

This topic contains the following sections that describe how to define a promotion:

Enter general promotion information

The following table describes the basic properties for a promotion. You set these properties on the promotion’s General tab.

Property Description
Display Name (required) Short, descriptive name that identifies the promotion.
Description Short description that helps you to identify a promotion in the administration interface. The description does not appear on your store.
Sites Select the sites this promotion applies to. Select Applies to all for a promotion that can be used on all sites. By default, the promotion applies to all sites. See Understand site-specific promotions for more information.
Price Groups Select the price groups this promotion applies to. If you leave this field blank, the promotion applies to all price groups. See Understand currency-specific promotions for more information.

Enter condition and offer information

The condition and offer determine how your promotion works, as well as what the qualifying behavior is, what type of discount results, and if there are any exclusions.

  • The buy condition describes items or spend amount that qualify for the discount. (Not all promotions require a buy condition. For example, the Get Item Discount and Get Order Discount promotions do not require a buy condition.
  • The offer describes items that are discounted by the promotion. Commerce evaluates the condition rules first before evaluating the offer rules to find target items for the discount.

You set condition and offer properties on the promotion’s General tab.

The following table describes the buy condition properties for Commerce promotions.

Note: The Get Item Discount and Get Shipping Discount promotions do not have buy conditions.

Property Description
Minimum Spend

The spend threshold for promotions that require a shopper to spend a minimum amount.

Minimum Spend applies to the following promotions: Spend Y Get Gift With Purchase, Spend Y in X Get Item Discount, Spend Y for Order Discount, Spend Y in X Get Order Discount, Spend Y in X Get Shipping Discount, and Spend Y Get Shipping Discount.

If you are creating a Spend Y For Order Discount promotion, you can specify one or more spend tiers and assign a discount to each tier. For example, order totals from $75 to $99.99 are discounted by 10%, order totals from $100 to $149.99 are discounted by 15%, and order totals of $150 or more are discounted by 20%.

To create a promotion without tiers, that is, one that provides the same spend threshold for all orders, enter the Minimum Spend value, leave the Range End value blank, and then enter a discount amount.

Get Discount With Any Order For Buy X Get Order Discount promotions, specifies that the shopper can make any purchase anywhere in your store. If you do not select this option, you must select individual products and collections that qualify for the promotion (Included Items).
Spend On Any Item For Spend Y in X promotions, specifies that the shopper can spend the Minimum Spend amount anywhere in your store. If you do not select this option, you must select individual products and collections that qualify for the promotion (Included Items).
Included Items

Products, collections, and SKUs that qualify for the discount. See Include or exclude products, SKUs, or collections for more information.

To qualify everything in your store for the discount, select Include Entire Catalog. Even if you select this option, you can still select products and collections that cannot qualify for the promotion (Excluded Items).

Included Items applies to the following promotions: Get Item Discount, Buy One Get One, Gift With Item Purchase, Spend Y in X Get Item Discount, Spend Y in X Get Order Discount, Buy X Get Order Discount, Spend Y in X Get Shipping Discount, and Buy X Get Shipping Discount.

Excluded Items

Products, collections, and SKUs that cannot qualify for the promotion. Excluded items always take precedence over included items. SeeInclude or exclude products, SKUs, or collections for more information.

Excluded Items applies to the following promotions: Get Item Discount, Buy One Get One, Gift With Item Purchase, Spend Y in X Get Item Discount, Spend Y in X Get Order Discount, Buy X Get Order Discount, Spend Y in X Get Shipping Discount, and Buy X Get Shipping Discount.

Give Gift With Any Order For a Gift With Item Purchase promotion, specifies that the promotion should apply to any order without requiring the purchase of specific products. If you select this option, you will no longer see the Included items, Excluded items, and Number of items required to buy to get offer fields.
Number of Items Required to Buy to Get Offer) For a Buy One Get One promotion, the number of items the shopper must purchase in order to receive the discount.

The following table describes the offer properties for Commerce promotions.

Property Description
Discount Type

For order promotions, select Amount Off or Percent.

For shipping promotions and item promotions (except gift with purchase), select Amount Off, Percent, Fixed Price, or Free.

Discount Amount Enter the amount of the discount or, if the Discount Type is Fixed Price, enter the price of the item. If the Discount Type is Free, this field does not appear.
Included Items

Products, collections, or SKUs that are discounted by the promotion. SeeInclude or exclude products, SKUs, or collections for more information.

To allow everything in your store to be discounted by the promotion, select Include Entire Catalog. Even if you select this option, you can still select products, collections, and SKUs that cannot be discounted by the promotion (Excluded Items).

This offer property applies to the following promotions: Get Item Discount, Buy One Get One, and Spend Y in X Get Item Discount.

Excluded Items

Products, collections, or SKUs that cannot be discounted by the promotion. Excluded items always take precedence over included items.

SeeInclude or exclude products, SKUs, or collections for more information.

This offer property applies to the following promotions: Get Item Discount, Buy One Get One, and Spend Y in X Get Item Discount.

Items to Include and Exclude For Offer Are the Same as Items in Buy Condition

For Buy One Get One promotions, you can select this option instead of selecting items to include or exclude for the offer.

If you update the included and excluded items in the condition, the offer is automatically updated when you save the promotion.

Number of Items to be Discounted as Part of the Offer

Prevents discounting an unlimited number of qualifying items. Enter the number of items that can receive the discount. For instance, if a shopper purchases six items in the discounted category, you might discount five of them. By default, this is set to unlimited.

This offer property applies to the following promotions: Get Item Discount, Buy One Get One, and Spend Y in X Get Item Discount.

Order by Which Discount is Applied

Select whether the discount should be applied to the lowest or the highest priced items in the order first. By default, discounts are applied to the lowest-priced items first.

This setting applies only if you specified a number of items to be discounted as part of the offer. If the offer discounts unlimited items, this setting is ignored.

This offer property applies to the following promotions: Get Item Discount, Buy One Get One, and Spend Y in X Get Item Discount.

Price to Use for Sorting Items

Select whether to use list prices or lowest discounted prices when Commerce determines which items the promotion should discount. A product’s lowest discounted price can be discounted by one or more of the following: a price group’s sale price, promotion discounts, or integration with an external pricing system.

See Sample item discount promotion for details about how this setting affects items discounted by a promotion.

This setting applies only if you specified the number of items to be discounted as part of the offer. If the offer discounts unlimited items, this setting is ignored.

This offer property applies to the following promotions: Get Item Discount, Buy One Get One, and Spend Y in X Get Item Discount.

Include Shipping Methods

For shipping promotions, the shipping methods that qualify for the discount.

To select shipping methods, begin by typing or pasting some text in the Add Shipping Methods box.

If a shipping method has an internal name assigned, it appears in parentheses after the shipping method's display name. Internal names are hidden from shoppers but let you create multiple shipping methods with the same display name.

Select a Gift For gift with purchase promotions, the product given as a free gift by the promotion. You can select any single product from your catalog.
Gift Handling When Cart No Longer Meets Buy Condition

For gift with purchase promotions, specifies what should happen to a gift item in the cart when the cart no longer qualifies for the promotion. Select one of the following options:

Automatically remove gift item from cart

Leave gift in cart and reprice item

Enter promotion availability information

The following table describes the properties that define a promotion’s lifecycle by specifying when it is active and usable. These properties are available on a promotion’s Availability tab.

Property Description
Start Date / Time Date and time the promotion becomes available.
End Date / Time Date and time the promotion is no longer available.
Target Audience Select one or more audiences whose members are eligible for this promotion. By default, no audiences are specified and the promotion is available to all shoppers. Audiences are listed alphabetically by display name. Both enabled and disabled audiences appear in the list. See Understand audience-specific promotions for more information.
Coupon Code

The code customers use to redeem a coupon for this promotion. Coupon codes are case-sensitive.

Note: You must save a new promotion before you can add a coupon code to it.

See Add a coupon code to a promotion for more information.

Priority (required)

The priority of the promotion. Promotions are applied in order of priority, with low priority numbers applied first. Commerce sorts the promotions by the value of this property.

A promotion’s priority is evaluated against other promotions of the same type. For example, item discounts are evaluated only against other item discounts, not against order discounts.

If an order qualifies for multiple promotion types, item discounts are applied first, followed by order discounts, then shipping discounts.

Promotions that are of the same type and have the same priority have no guaranteed sequence, so the order in which they are evaluated is undefined.

Enabled Specifies whether this promotion can be used with a qualifying order. This setting is turned on by default, but a promotion’s availability also depends on any start and end dates you set. If Enabled is turned off, the promotion cannot be used regardless of the start and end dates.
Card IIN Range

Credit cards use an international Issuer Identification Number (IIN) that identifies the type of card, for example, MasterCard or American Express. The first 6 digits of a credit card contain the IIN. You can create a range of numbers that identify a specific credit card issuer, allowing you to create credit card-specific promotions. Entering a range of numbers allows you to identify specific credit cards that qualify for this promotion.

You can use dashes (-) and commas (,) to set ranges. For example, 2 – 3 would include all credit cards that have an IIN between 200000 and 399999. The end of the range must be larger than the starting range. Use commas to specify a series of ranges, such as 222 (all numbers between 222000 and 222999), 444 (all numbers between 444000 and 444999). These conventions can be used together, for example, 1011, 122122-122925, 133-139, 15. By default, promotions are not limited to any credit card type or range.

Note: Although it is possible to assign IIN ranges when working with CyberSource payment gateways, the promotions will not apply.

Folder The folder where this promotion is stored. By default, no folder is selected. If you created the promotion by copying an existing promotion, then the value is the same folder as the promotion you copied. See Organize promotions in folders for more information.
Custom Defined Label A custom property associated with the promotion, if one has been configured. (Custom promotion properties are configured with the Admin API. See Create custom properties for promotionsCreate custom properties for promotions for more information.)

Understand promotion filters

Promotions can be filtered using the options provided on the promotion's Advanced tab. Filters allow you to perform a number of actions, such as exclude or include qualified items, or include items that are on sale. Filters are based on qualifying conditions or offers presented by the promotion. To implement a filter, perform the following steps:
  1. Use the administration interface to go to Promotions.
  2. Select the promotion to edit.
  3. Click the Advanced tab. The screen displays the filters that are available for that promotion.
  4. Use the drop down menu to select the filter settings. If you do not select a setting, the default settings are used.
The following filters are available for promotions:
Filter Description Used on promotions
Qualified Items (Any promotion) This conditional filter allows you to identify if a qualifier can be used only once per promotion. If you select Include, qualifiers will be used only once per promotion. Item, Order or Shipping promotions.
Discounted Items (Any promotion) This conditional filter allows you to include or exclude items discounted by any promotion and allow them to act as a qualifier for other promotions. Item, Order or Shipping promotions.
Discounted Items (Current promotion) This conditional filter allows you to determine if items discounted by the current promotion can act as a qualifier for other promotions Item promotions.
Items on Sale This conditional filter identifies if items that have a sale price can act as qualifiers. Item, Order or Shipping promotions.
Items with Zero Prices This conditional filter identifies if an item with a zero price can act as a qualifier for this promotion. Item, Order or Shipping promotions.
Items with Negative Prices This conditional filter identifies if items with negative prices can act as qualifiers. If you select Include, then items with negative prices will act as a qualifier. Item, Order or Shipping promotions.
Qualified Items This offer filter includes or excludes items that have acted as qualifiers for another discount. If you include these items, any item that acted as a qualifier for another discount can be receive the discount. Item promotions only.
Discounted items (Any promotion) This offer filter determines if items that have already been discounted by the current promotion can receive the discount again. If you include discounted items, the items can receive the discount again. Item promotions only.
Discounted Items (Current promotion) This offer filter includes or excludes discounted items from the current promotion. Item promotions only.
Items on Sale This offer filter includes or excludes items that were priced with a sales price from receiving the discount. Item promotions only.
Items with Zero Prices This offer filter includes or excludes items that have zero prices. Item promotions only.
Items with Negative Prices This offer filter identifies if items with negative prices can receive the discount. If you include items with negative prices, they will receive the discount. Item promotions only.
Items with Prices Lower than Promotion Price (Fixed Price promotions only) This offer filter includes or excludes items that have a price lower than the promotion price. This applies to fixed price promotions only. Item promotions only.