Discounts in Dynamicweb are handled by the discount matrix, which is a powerful tool for creating and assigning discounts based on various conditions – as known from many ERP systems.

To break it down, you can create several types of discounts, control the criteria for triggering them, and how they are applied to the order or product when checking out.

For instance, you can:

• Create 10% discounts and control when they are active, and which products they are active for
• Create discounts of the buy one, get one free type for selected products
• Create free shipping for orders over $100 – discounts
• Award discounts based on promotional codes or vouchers
• Etc.

To access the Discount Matrix go to the Ecommerce area and click the Order Discounts node (Figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1 The order discount node

This opens the discount matrix interface (Figure 2.2), where you can view, edit or create discounts.

Figure 2.2 The discount matrix

From the discount matrix view, you can see all sorts of information about each discount, the name, type, amount/percentage/product awarded, and whether the discount is active or not.

From the discount matrix view, you can also create (or delete) a discount – simply use the buttons in the toolbar above the list.

Creating or editing a discount will take you to the edit discount interface.

You have a lot of options for customization when creating discounts – and here’s a breakdown of what they do.

First up are the general settings (Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1 The general discount settings

With the general settings, you can:

• Provide a name and optionally a description for the discount
• Activate or deactivate the discount. An inactive discount will not appear in frontend, and will not be applied on checkout.
• Allow or disallow the discount to be assignable from the product catalog
• Use the Valid from and Valid to fields to specify a timespan during which the discount applies.

The discount settings (Figure 4.1) allow you to select what type of discount this is, and how it should be applied one the order.

Figure 4.1 The discount settings

You must specify how the discount should be applied:

• An Order Discount (inclusive) is applied and calculated AFTER order line discounts have been applied, based on the discounted price
• An Order Discount (exclusive) is applied and calculated based on the order price BEFORE any other discounts have been applied
• An Orderline Discount (Exclusive) applies to a single product, and is applied BEFORE any other discounts have been applied

Next you must select a discount type - your options are:

• A fixed amount in a currency of your choice, e.g. "10 dollars off"
• A percentage of the total price - e.g. "10% off the cheapest item"
• A product may be given as a discount – e.g. “buy for 100 dollars and get a free mug”…
• Free shipping

For percentage-type discounts, you can then define a percentage - and specify if the discount should be applied to all products, the cheapest product, or the most expensive product (Figure 4.2). This makes it possible to create BOGO (buy-one-get-one) discounts.

Figure 4.2 BOGO discounts

If you want to restrict the discount to only select users or customers, you can do so using the user group settings (Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1 Users and Group settings

You can:

• Select a specific user or a user group
• Enter a customer number (which may be shared by several users, e.g. everyone who works for company X)

If no restrictions are created, the discount applies to all users.

The total price settings (Figure 6.1) allow you to create conditions for triggering the discount based on the total price of the order.

Figure 6.1 The total price settings

Simply select a condition (equal to/not equal to, greater than/less than, greater than or equal to/less than or equal to) and specify an amount in the total price field.

The order settings (Figure 8.1) allow you to restrict the discount based on order details.

Figure 8.1 Order Settings

You can:

• Restrict the discount to a particular country
• Restrict the discount to a particular shipping method or payment method

The Product Quantity settings (Figure 9.1) allow you award a discount based on, well, how many products are bought – e.g. buy one get one free.

Figure 9.1 The product quantity settings

You can:

• Select if the total quantity of any products should trigger the discount, or if only the total quantity of the same product should trigger the discount
• Specify a quantity
• Decide if the discount can be applied more than once or not

With Vouchers you can generate unique voucher codes, which can then be used by your customers during checkout to receive certain discounts.

To create and manage vouchers:

• Go to the Ecommerce area
• Click the Vouchers node to open the voucher list overview (Figure 12.1)

Figure 12.1 The voucher list overview

From here, you can create and manage voucher lists – which in turn contain vouchers.

Right-clicking a list allows you to edit, delete and re/deactivate a list (Figure 12.2).

Figure 12.2 The right click menu for voucher lists

Non unique vouchers
The Vouchers tool creates unique codes, which can only be used once.

If you need a non-unique code, usable by multiple customers on multiple orders, you don’t need to use the vouchers tool. Instead, create a discount and use the order field value option under Field and Voucher settings on a discount instead. 

To create a new voucher list:

• Click new voucher list in the toolbar
• Name the voucher list – and set it to be active or inactive (Figure 13.1)
• Save the list

Figure 13.1 Creating a new voucher list

A newly created voucher list is empty, however, and you must create or generate vouchers for it to make it useful.

To create new vouchers within a voucher list, click it in the voucher list overview to open it.

You will see a list of vouchers (if any have been created), as well as a set of tools (Figure 14.1).

Figure 14.1 Creating new vouchers

You can:

• Add vouchers manually, provided that you give them a unique code. You can add multiple vouchers, provided that they are separated by a comma or a line break
• Delete vouchers – this deletes all selected vouchers from the list
• Generate vouchers. Click this option to open a dialogue which allows you to generate a fixed number of vouchers, or to generate an exact number of vouchers based on a number of individually selected users or user groups. This can be useful if you want to mail all users in e.g. the product group German users a unique voucher code.
• Activate or deactivate a list, e.g. once an offer has expired.
• You can also click send mails to distribute the vouchers to your customers – read more below.
• Finally, you can download the voucher list content as a .csv file, in case you need it for some nefarious purpose

From the voucher list, you can also see if and when a voucher has been used.

You can always open a list and generate new vouchers if your list if low on vouchers.

Before emailing vouchers to your customers, you must:

• Create a discount triggered by vouchers in a voucher list – see Field and Voucher settings above.
• Generate an appropriate number of vouchers in the voucher list.

Once that’s settled, simply:

• Open the voucher list
• Click the Send mails button in the toolbar to open the email window (Figure 15.1)

Figure 15.1 Emailing vouchers to your customer

From the voucher email view you must:

• Select individual users or user groups as recipients
• Provide a sender name, sender email and a subject for your emails
• Select, edit or create an email template for your email

The VoucherMail.html template provides an example of how to include one of the unique voucher codes in the email and more.

Once your vouchers have been emailed, you will have access to more information about each code in the voucher list – who received it, if and when it was used, and which order it was used on.

There is no database specific information for this subject.