How to Create and Configure Discount Codes
A great way to level up customer engagement heading into the holiday season is with discount codes. You are able to set up shipping and dollar discount codes flexibly in the AccelPay Portal.
As the holidays approach, expect an influx of gift purchases across the next few months — an annual event that’ll only be heightened by the post-COVID e-commerce shopping boom.
Even more so, broader delays in global supply chains are trickling down to affect availability and shipping for e-commerce brands across all segments. Our recommendation? Beat this year’s slowdown by getting a head start on your seasonal campaigns, promotions, and more.
We’ve laid out four steps below that every alcohol brand should take to beat the annual gift rush, while also maximizing the profitability and potential of this concentrated shopping period.
Step One: Time Blocking
First, you can start building out a major messaging campaign by looking ahead on your calendar and selecting key dates to lay out a time frame from early November up until Christmas.
Specifically, we recommend blocking out three primary phases for your campaign delivery.
Pre-Black Friday
By pushing messaging campaigns out as early as mid-November, you’re gearing folks up for the holiday season around the corner, as well as letting potential buyers know to keep an eye out for a promotion in the works.
More importantly, you’re setting your brand up to start the season on a strong note — and to not get caught unprepared by the sudden arrival of Thanksgiving crunchtime.
Thanksgiving & Late November
From Thanksgiving onward, particularly that first weekend including Black Friday, you’ll want to host and advertise some kind of actionable event, i.e. a special release or promotional discount, to jumpstart customers into their seasonal shopping cycles.
Cutoffs for Christmas
Finally, you’ll want to round out the season by selecting a cutoff date for placing new orders.
Seven to 10 days before December 25th is a safe bet for buyers to receive a bottle at their door by Christmas Day, and reminders should be sent out in the days leading up to this cutoff.
In terms of the broader time crunch that’s anticipated due to global supply chain slowdowns, you should emphasize the convenience of purchasing from a domestic brand paired with the reliability that you offer for a timely, safe delivery of your product.
Step Two: Spice Up Your Specials
Once you’ve laid the initial groundwork, it’s time to elevate your campaign by crafting it into something creative and exciting for the spirit of the season.
In other words, your buyer’s inbox may be flooded by holiday deals, but you can capture their attention and help them recognize the thoughtfulness through your core brand messaging.
For instance, Far North Spirits is offering a holiday two-pack for drinks that’ll warm you up in the colder months. Imagine a whiskey, rye, or bourbon for your spicy cocktail or mulled wine.
Ultimately, you’re working with the inventory you have and considering which themed products can play into people’s holiday spirit — even better if it’s in a bundle to boost your AOV.
On the other hand, this period offers a practical opportunity to look back at the year’s releases and offload any remaining inventory through a unique discount or exclusive holiday promo.
Step Three: Ramp Up Your Promotion Game
Next, consider the tactical logistics of your promotions. After all, it can be tricky to time promo launches, depending on whether your customer pool skews toward early or late gift grabbers.
There are two general approaches you can take: 1) offering enticing deals early on to preempt other sales or 2) holding off until late in the buyer’s window to pull the trigger on your promo.
The former can snag early shoppers, or at least convince late shoppers to try an early purchase, but could also lose its appeal by mid-December when fresher deals are dropping every day.
The latter can appeal to buyers who play the long game and wait it out for the most optimal deal, but can still ultimately result in you losing out on early or average shoppers.
Ultimately, there’s no gold-standard method and you’ll need to use your judgement depending on what aligns with your brand’s target demographic, metric goalposts, and even inventory.
For instance, returning to your campaign calendar, you can skew discounts away from marking down products and toward offering cheaper, faster shipping as Christmas creeps closer.
Step Four: Email Marketing On Deck
As we pointed out in our advice for email marketing, setting up your email flow so your comms can run seamlessly is a simple yet essential step of the process that’s easily overlooked.
We recommend starting with a quick info sweep: pull last year’s seasonal purchase data and make sure that customer cohort is consistently re-engaged early on.
In turn, your team won’t be stressed out and frantically attempt to piece together the perfect layout in MailChimp just a few days before Thanksgiving — which circles back to our larger point: the holidays are a time of year with promise of high ROI for your alcohol brand.
You can utilize this opportunity to the max by planning thoroughly and creatively, not stressfully executing a last minute, makeshift campaign.
If your brand has these moving parts staged within the first weeks of November, you should be ready to hook the earliest seasonal shoppers and take full advantage of the holiday rush.
Sit Back and Enjoy the Holidays!
Once you’ve got these steps locked in — a killer campaign calendar, creative promos, and ready-to-launch email marketing — you’ll be the one leading the holiday rush, not falling behind.
Whether your user base is composed of individuals shopping for friends and family or corporate customers with high-volume needs, Accelpay is the platform of choice for your alcohol brand.
To get access to our instant storefront setup and stress-free bulk ordering, get started here.
A great way to level up customer engagement heading into the holiday season is with discount codes. You are able to set up shipping and dollar discount codes flexibly in the AccelPay Portal under Discounts.
The Discounts tab will list all currently active Discount Codes. Use the toggle in the top left corner to show expired promo codes.
All discounts set up here are billed back to you on a monthly basis.
You can set up a variety of different types of discount codes by following these steps:
Step 1: Discount Type
Set the Discount Type.
Note: Only one shipping and one total discount type can be applied to the same order or they will counteract each other and not apply properly.
If you want to subsidize any shipping costs, then you can set up shipping discounts. You can set a flat rate and also set up parameters where if the order value reaches a certain amount you can offer free shipping, etc. If no Shipping discounts are created, then the shipping rate at checkout will automatically pull from the retailer's ShipStation or settings meaning the true shipping rate will get passed to customers with no bill-backs to the brand.
Shipping - Flat Rate
Set up a shipping flat rate for all orders. E.g. all customers pay $9.99 per order.
Shipping - Percentage Discount
Discount the shipping expense by a relative percentage amount of the shipping cost.
Shipping - Dollar Discount
Discount the shipping expense by a fixed dollar amount per order.
Total - Percentage Discount
Discount the total checkout value by a fixed dollar amount.
Total - Flat Rate
Discount the total checkout value by a relative percentage amount.
Step 2: Amount
Set the amount corresponding to the type of discount chosen.
Shipping - Flat Rate
Value: 10
Effect: $10 flat rate shipping on all orders.
Example: A $10 shipping charge is added to all orders. The difference between the $10 and the actual shipping cost incurred by the retailer is billed back to you.
Shipping - Percentage Discount
Value: 10
Effect: 10% discount on the shipping cost.
Example: Shipping costs $18 but with this code, customers get a $1.80 discount (10%) and only pay $16.20 for shipping
Shipping - Dollar Discount
Value: 10
Effect: $10 discount on the shipping cost.
Example: Shipping costs $18 but with this code, customers get a $10 discount and only pay $8 for shipping.
Total - Percentage Discount
Value: 15
Effect: 15% discount on the product subtotal in the cart at check-out.
Example: A customer adds $50 worth of products to their cart but with this code, they get a $7.50 discount (15%) and only pay $42.50.
Total - Dollar Discount
Value: 15
Effect: $15 discount on the product subtotal in the cart at check-out.
Example: A customer adds $50 worth of products to their cart but with this code, they get a $15 discount and only pay $35.
Step 3: Usage
Unlimited Usage
This code can be used an unlimited amount of times in total and per customer.
Use case: Give this out to your most loyal customers to reward them for their repeat business.
One Time Use Only
This code can only be used one single time and then never again.
Use case: Send this to an influencer to get discounted products for their advertising purposes.
One Time Per Customer
This code can be used once per customer, but unlimited amounts of times across all customers.
Use case: Attract new customers by offering a 10% discount on their first order.
Step 4: Timeframe
Choose the start and end date between which the code should be applicable.
To make a discount code inactive, you need to select a date in the past for the end date and it will automatically deactivate the code.
Step 5 (optional): Limiting conditions
Minimum Amount
Set a minimum checkout value ($) that needs to be reached before the discount code can be applied.
Maximum Amount
Set a maximum checkout value ($) that can be reached before the discount code can no longer be applied.
Minimum Total Items
Set a minimum number of total products that must be added to the cart before the discount code can be applied.
Minimum Variants
Set a minimum number of a specific product that must be added to the cart before the discount code can be applied.
Minimum Listing Types
Set a minimum number of products for a particular listing type. For example, you could have the discount activated for 3 wine products. That would mean if a sale had 3 spirits products in it, it would not be discounted but 3 wine products would.
Automatically Applied
This determines whether customers need to manually input the discount code at checkout or if it is applied automatically to any orders meeting the conditions.
Step 6: Code
If the code is Automatically Applied (see step 5), this simply sets the name for the code.
If the code is not Automatically Applied, this is the code customers need to type in to receive the discount.
Name this something that is easy to remember or related to the holiday or promotion that you are celebrating.
Example: THANKSGIVING23
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Braxton Freeman
Grolsch