Discount Coupon

[holowan]

Hi, Just a quick question. I'd like to begin using coupon codes with my S2member Pro installation, but what I'm unclear on is if the discount I offer would be applied to recurring payments or to only the first payment.

I run a site with monthly subscribers, and what I'd like to do is offer a discount on the first month, then have ongoing payments return to the full (undiscounted) amount.

Further, is there a way to restrict coupon usage per user?

Thanks!

[Cristián Lávaque]

Take a look at the coupon codes documentation at WP Admin -> s2Member -> Coupon Codes.

By default, s2Member will apply the discount to ALL amounts, including any Regular/Recurring fees.
* However, you may configure Coupon Codes that will ONLY apply to (ta) Trial Amounts, or (ra) Regular Amounts.

SAVE-10|10%||ta-only (10% off an Initial/Trial Amount. The ta="" attribute in your Shortcode.)
SAVE-15|15%||ra-only (15% off the Regular Amount(s). The ra="" attribute in your Shortcode.)
XMAS|5.00|12/31/2021|ra-only ($5 off Regular Amount(s). The ra="" attribute in your Shortcode.)
5PER|5%|12/31/2021|all (5% off All Amounts. This is the default behavior "all".)

* As noted above, s2Member will NEVER allow the (ra) Regular Amount to be less than: $0.01.
However, s2Member WILL allow the (ta) Trial Amount to be discounted all the way down to $0.00.

I hope it helps you.

[Cristián Lávaque]

Further, is there a way to restrict coupon usage per user?

Could you explain in more detail what you mean?

[holowan]

Hi Cristián,

Thanks for your reply. I did read through that screen, and it was this bit that had me unsure: "By default, s2Member will apply the discount to ALL amounts, including any Regular/Recurring fees.
* However, you may configure Coupon Codes that will ONLY apply to (ta) Trial Amounts, or (ra) Regular Amounts."

I'm not concerned with Trial Amounts, it's just the Regular/Recurring that would impact my site. But since it reads, "s2Member will apply the discount to ALL amounts, including any Regular/Recurring fees" this says to me that the discount would be applied to any ongoing/recurring fees, not just the first. Is that correct?

As for restricting coupon usage, what I meant was, if I give out a discount code, I'd only want each user to apply it to their membership once. If they use the discount code once, I wouldn't want that specific user to be able to reuse the same discount again in the future. Does that make sense?

Thanks!

[Cristián Lávaque]

I understand your worry.

Yes, the default is to apply the coupon to all amounts, but notice that you can select not to have it be like that. If you configure the coupon to apply to trial amounts only, then it won't be applied to regular amounts.

Try it and do a test purchase. You can set the trial to 1 day only so the regular amount is billed soon.

About the user restriction of coupon codes, I don't know that s2Member does it yet. I'll ask Jason.

[holowan]

Ahhh...gotcha Cristián! My apologies, I was mis-understanding "trial amounts" in the instructions in the interface. I'm just testing it out now, but I seem to be getting an error. I insert "SAVE-10|10%||ta-only" as a coupon code, then add accept_coupons="1" and ta="" to my form code, but I get the following message: "Sorry, your Coupon is not applicable."

Any thoughts as to what I'm doing wrong? I tried setting various values for ta="" to no avail...

Thanks for checking that last question with Jason, and thanks again for your help!

[Cristián Lávaque]

Well, I guess that having no trial amount would make a trial-only coupon inapplicable.

Could you share the shortcode for your form?

[holowan]

Sure, here it is. I'm just not clear on what value I should be specifying in ta="" In the code below, I've specified the monthly rate discounted by 10% for ta=""

Code: Select all

[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form level="1" ccaps="" desc="Subscribe monthly and get unlimited access for just $19.95 USD/month (recurring)" ps="paypal" cc="USD" ns="1" custom="www.mysite.com" tp="0" tt="D" ra="19.95" rp="1" rt="M" rr="1" accept="paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo" accept_via_paypal="paypal" coupon="" accept_coupons="1" ta="17.95" /]

[Cristián Lávaque]

It looks like you aren't giving a trial there.

Read this and see if helps you WP Admin -> s2Member -> PayPal Pro-Forms -> Shortcode Attributes (Explained).

[holowan]

Hmmm...I'm really not getting anywhere with this. I tried adding in the appropriate shortcodes, but am unsure what values I should be using to achieve what I want. This is what I have so far, but it's giving me errors...

I set ta to the same as ra, as I want to provide a 10% discount on that amount. tt is M, and the trial period (the discount) should apply for only one month. Not too sure where to go from here...

[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form level="1" ccaps="" desc="Subscribe monthly and get unlimited access for just $19.95 USD/month (recurring)" ps="paypal" cc="USD" ns="1" custom="www.mysite.com" tp="0" tt="D" ra="19.95" rp="1" rt="M" rr="1" accept="paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo" accept_via_paypal="paypal" coupon="" accept_coupons="1" ta="19.95" tt="M" tp="1" /]

[Cristián Lávaque]

You defined tp and tt twice with different values. Also, that shortcode gives this error:

Invalid form configuration. Invalid "ta, tp, tt" attributes. Trial Period. When provided, these cannot be exactly the same as your "ra, rp, rt" attributes.

This seems to work. Does it do what you want?

[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form level="1" ccaps="" desc="Subscribe monthly and get unlimited access for just $19.95 USD/month (recurring)" ps="paypal" cc="USD" ns="1" custom="www.mysite.com" ta="19.94" tp="1" tt="M" ra="19.95" rp="1" rt="M" rr="1" accept="paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo" accept_via_paypal="paypal" coupon="" accept_coupons="1" /]

I changed the trial by 1 cent to avoid the error above.

[holowan]

Dohhh! Thanks sooo much Cristián! It works beautifully. So I was on the right track by setting tp="1" and tt="M", I just didn't notice that I had two of each. Awesome!

These shortcodes look very powerful, I'll have to read up more on them.

Once again, thanks so much!

[Cristián Lávaque]

[Jason Caldwell]

Well, I guess that having no trial amount would make a trial-only coupon inapplicable.

Yes, that is correct.

[Jason Caldwell]

Thanks for the great question.
~ and thanks for bringing this to my attention Cristián.

About the user restriction of coupon codes, I don't know that s2Member does it yet. I'll ask Jason.

Sorry, not yet. This is something we'll be working toward though, as we improve reporting for Coupon Codes in general. There are plans to track the usage of Coupon Codes in a more sophisticated way; and once that is integrated, the ability to restrict the usage on a Per-User basis should become possible.

[Cristián Lávaque]

Thanks for clarifying that, Jason.

Why can't the trial and recurring attributes not be the same? Is this a PayPal limitation or just the way s2Member handles it because it's unusual that they would be the same?

[Jason Caldwell]

Great question. This is a PayPal® limitation.
I'm not exactly sure why they impose that restriction. The reason s2Member throws an error, is to prevent you from creating a situation that would ultimately result in failure.

PayPal's documentation states:

A trial period may not have the same
billing cycles and payment amounts as the regular payment period.

* Taken from: https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd= ... 86510JA030

[Cristián Lávaque]

Yeah, I can understant that s2Member has to play by PayPal's rules in that case. Well, the 1 cent trick works.