Combining discounts
For some of your promotions, you might want to allow customers to combine discounts. You can choose from eligible combinations that allow customers to benefit from the best possible discount based on their cart. Automatic discounts and discount codes can be set up to combine.
When you set up discounts to be able to be combined, you select which classes of discounts can combine. Discount classes are like the categories of discounts. The classes that you can create are order discounts, product discounts, and shipping discounts. Discount types are more specific, such as buy X get Y, or amount off products.
You can combine the following classes of discounts:
- order discounts with free shipping discounts
- product discounts (buy X get Y, amount off) with free shipping discounts
- product discounts with other product discounts
If there are active automatic discounts on your store, and a customer also uses discount codes, then the best discount or combination of discounts is automatically applied to the customer's cart. Whether the discount is automatic or it's a code, the best discount for the customer is always selected.
If a customer enters more than one discount code during checkout that exist but can't be combined, then the following message is displayed: Some discount codes couldn't be used together. We applied the best combination
.
On this page
Considerations
- No more than one discount ever applies to any single item in an order.
- If two or more discounts are applied, but can’t be combined (due to the discount combination setting or the content of the cart), then the best discount for the customer's cart is always applied. For example, if you have an uncombinable 20% off discount for your
Socks
collection and an uncombinable $30 off discount for yourChristmas Socks
collection, and then a customer applies both to their cart, then the better discount for the customer applies. - Multiple discounts are applied to an order only when the setting on each discount allows the combination.
- If you're creating a new discount to combine with another new discount, then you don't have to set both up simultaneously. You can set up and save the first discount, and then create the second discount after. After each discount is active and set up to combine with one another, they will combine automatically if a customer applies both to an order..
- You can have a maximum of 25 automatic discounts active on your store at one time.
- Customers can combine a maximum of 5 combinable discount codes per order.
Discount combination examples
The following table illustrates some examples of possible discount combinations.
Combination scenario | Example discount | Description |
---|---|---|
Product discount
+ Product discount (applied to different products) |
20offPants + 10offShirts
|
20offPants and 10offShirts offer discounts to different items in the same cart. |
Product discount(s)
+ Free shipping discount |
20offPants + 10offShirts + FreeShip
|
Product discounts and shipping discounts apply on the same order. |
Order discount
+ Shipping discount |
Welcome10 + FreeShip
|
Order discounts and shipping discounts apply on the same order. |
Example scenario
A merchant has a 20offPants
and a 10offShirts
code active on their store. They also have an automatic free shipping discount called Freeship100
that applies automatically to all purchases over 100 USD.
If a customer adds 100 USD worth of pants, 50 USD worth of shirts, and a $200 pair of boots to their cart, then their subtotal cart value is 350 USD.
The customer's address would normally cost the merchant $20 to ship to, but because there is an automatic free discount active for carts over 100 USD, the shipping is free. The customer's cart would look like the following breakdown.
Cart before discounts | Discounts | Cart after discounts |
---|---|---|
Pants - 100 USD
Shirts - 50 USD Boots - 200USD Subtotal - 350 USD Shipping - 20 USD Total - 370 USD |
20offPants - 20 USD off any pants
10offShirts - 10 USD off any shirt
Freeship100 - Free shipping on any order over 100 USD |
Pants - 80 USD
Shirts - 40 USD Boots - 200 USD Subtotal - 320 USD Shipping - Free Total - 320 USD |
Set up a new discount code to be able to be combined
Steps:
- From your Shopify admin, click Discounts.
- Click Create discount.
- Select the type of discount that you want to create and fill in the details.
- Under Combinations, select the discount classes that you want your new discount to combine with.
- Do one of the following:
- If the selected discount combination class has active discounts, then you can click the displayed number to see a list of active discounts that are eligible to combine with this discount.
- If there are no active discounts set up to be combined with the current one, then you need to set up discounts with it to combine later.
- Click Save.
Steps:
- From your Shopify admin, click Discounts.
- From the Discounts page, tap the
+
button. - Select the type of discount you want to create and fill in the details.
- Under Combines with, toggle the discount classes that you want your new discount to combine with.
- Do one of the following:
- If the selected discount combination class has active discounts, then you can tap to view the list of active discounts for this combination.
- If there are no active discounts set up to be combined with the current one, then you need to set up discounts to combine later.
- Tap Save.
Steps:
- From your Shopify admin, click Discounts.
- From the Discounts page, tap the
+
button. - Select the type of discount you want to create and fill in the details.
- Under Combines with, toggle the discount classes that you want your new discount to combine with.
- Do one of the following:
- If the selected discount combination class has active discounts, then you can tap to view the list of active discounts for this combination.
- If there are no active discounts set up to be combined with the current one, then you need to set up discounts to combine later.
- Tap the check mark (✔).
If you're setting up a discount type to be able to be combined for the first time, then you need to set up other discounts to be eligible to combine with it.
For example, if you set up a discount code for 25% off a collection of products, and you want it to combine with a free shipping discount code, then you need to go into each of the discounts and ensure they are both set up to combine with each other's discount class. The product discount needs to combine with shipping discounts, and the free shipping discount code needs to combine with product discounts.
Check to see if an active discount is able to be combined
You can test your discount combinations to ensure they are functioning correctly. One method to test your combinations is to do a test checkout on your store by adding the merchandise to your cart that triggers the discount combination.
If you want to see a list of all your combinations, then you can refer to the main Discounts page. Beside each of your store's discounts, under the Combines with column, the list shows if the discount is set up to combine. You can also filter the Discounts page to see a list of combinations.
Steps:
- From your Shopify admin, click Discounts.
- Click Filters.
- Click Select filter, and then select Combines with.
- Click Select value and select all the discount classes that you want to see the combinations for.