Reference → Create a dollar-amount discount coupon

Create a dollar-amount discount coupon

How to set up a fixed-dollar "money off" code your customers can enter at checkout

The Coupons screen is where you create the discount codes shoppers type into their cart to knock a set number of dollars off their order. The checkout form shows a Have a coupon? field; a customer types the code, clicks apply, and the cart subtotal drops by whichever fixed dollar amount you set. Setting up a single reliable promo code — a $5 OFF for email subscribers, a $10 OFF for a partner program, a $3 OFF thank-you for returning customers — takes about two minutes here.

What is this for?

The Coupons screen is your promo-code builder. Its job is to let you issue a string of characters (for example WELCOME5 or SPRING10) that a customer types into the coupon field on their cart and gets an instant dollar discount on their subtotal. You reach for it whenever you run a promotional campaign — an email sign-up reward, a partner referral code, a thank-you for a customer who raised a support ticket, a back-to-school promo, a one-off code for an influencer.

When you save a coupon as Publish, the code becomes live on the next cart that tries it.

Coupon Manage
Dashboard / Coupons / New
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Coupon Manage

Create and update coupons.

Good use cases

Example 1: Launch-week flat discount — BLACKFRIDAY25. Acme Coffee Roasters is running a Black Friday sale and wants every shopper to get $15 off for the duration of the campaign. Settings to use:

Code: BLACKFRIDAY25
Discount Type: Fixed cart discount
Coupon Amount: 15
Usage limit per coupon: (blank — unlimited)
Usage limit per user: 1
Expiry Date: (blank — end campaign by flipping to Draft)
Status: Publish

A customer adds a Barista T-Shirt ($26.99) and a Brewing Guide 2026 ($9) to their cart and enters BLACKFRIDAY25. Their $35.99 subtotal drops by $15 to $20.99. When the sale ends, flip the coupon to Draft — the code stops working on the next cart load. No deletion needed; you can re-publish next year.

Example 2: Wholesale tier recurring discount — WHOLESALE10. Acme Coffee Roasters has three wholesale accounts (Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Alan Turing) who reorder monthly and should always get $10 off. Settings to use:

Code: WHOLESALE10
Discount Type: Fixed cart discount
Coupon Amount: 10
Usage limit per coupon: (blank — unlimited total)
Usage limit per user: (blank — each wholesale account reuses monthly)
Allowed user: Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Alan Turing
Status: Publish

Each of those three accounts can apply WHOLESALE10 every single order. Any other shopper who tries it sees "Coupon code does not exist" because they are not in the Allowed user list. If a wholesale relationship ends, remove that account from Allowed user and save — the change takes effect on the next cart.

Example 3: One-time VIP gift coupon. A loyal customer (Margaret Hamilton) had a shipping delay on a Canvas Tote Bag order and deserves a goodwill credit. Settings to use:

Code: VIP-GIFT-MH
Discount Type: Fixed cart discount
Coupon Amount: 30
Usage limit per coupon: 1
Usage limit per user: 1
Allowed user: Margaret Hamilton
Status: Publish

Only Margaret can redeem VIP-GIFT-MH, and only once. Her next order of a Canvas Tote Bag ($30) or anything else up to $30 will cost her $0.00 in product (she still pays shipping if applicable). After she checks out, the coupon has hit its Usage limit per coupon of 1 and auto-disables — no other customer can use it even if they somehow knew the code.

Example 4: A $5 OFF email sign-up reward. You added a newsletter pop-up and promised $5 off your first order to sign-ups. Create WELCOME5, Fixed cart discount, Amount 5, Usage limit per user 1, Status Publish. When a subscriber adds the Coffee Sticker Pack ($3.99) and a Canvas Tote Bag ($30) to their cart and applies WELCOME5, their $33.99 subtotal drops by $5 to $28.99.

What NOT to use this for

  • Do not use percentage discounts for now. The coupon form does offer a Percentage discount type — do not pick it. Dollar-amount coupons (Fixed cart discount) work reliably; percentage coupons have a known issue being addressed. If you need a "10% off" promotion, work out the typical basket size and offer a fixed-dollar equivalent (a $5 OFF for a typical $50 order is 10%), or hold off until the percentage path is fixed.
  • Do not set an expiry date for now. The Coupon Expiry Date field has a known issue that prevents coupons with dates from working as expected. Leave the field blank so your coupon remains valid until you manually move it to Draft or Trash. When you are ready to end a campaign, edit the coupon and flip its Status from Publish to Draft, or trash it from the list — that is an immediate and reliable way to turn a code off.
  • Do not use the coupon amount to give a product away for free. Setting a $30 OFF coupon against a $30 Tote Bag does zero the order — but the discount applies to the cart subtotal, not to a specific product, so a customer who adds a $30 Tote plus a $3.99 Sticker Pack sees $3.99 to pay, not free shipping on both. If you want to give a specific product away, reach out to the customer directly or issue an order refund after purchase.
  • Do not use coupons to restrict by category or by product. The coupon form has no product or category picker — every coupon applies to the entire cart subtotal. If you want a "Shirts-only 20% off" promotion, that is not something coupons can do today.
  • Do not use the same code for unrelated campaigns. Coupon codes are unique — if a marketing team tries to create SPRING for a spring sale and a partner team already used SPRING for their program last year, the save will fail with "Coupon code is already exists". Use a differentiating suffix (SPRING-MKT, SPRING-P1).

How this connects to other features

  • Ecommerce → Configuration → Purchase Flow — the coupon input field on the public cart is controlled by the Enable coupons on cart setting in Purchase Flow. If that is off, customers do not see a coupon box at all, even if your coupons are published.
  • Your public cart page — when Status is Publish, the code you created works immediately on the cart (/cart/). A customer types the code into the Have a coupon? field, clicks apply, and the subtotal drops by the dollar amount. Only one coupon can be applied per cart.
  • Ecommerce → Orders — every order records which coupon was used and the dollar amount that was discounted. Changes you make to a coupon do not retroactively change orders that have already been placed.
  • Users — if you pick one or more specific customers in Allowed user, only those customer accounts can apply the code. Everyone else sees "Coupon code does not exist" when they try. Customers must be signed in for this restriction to take effect.

Before you start

  • You are signed in to SGEN as an Administrator or Site Owner.
  • Your store currency is set under Ecommerce → Configuration → General. The coupon amount is in your store currency — a coupon of "5" means five of your configured currency units.
  • The Enable coupons on cart toggle is on under Ecommerce → Configuration → Purchase Flow (it is on by default on a fresh install).
  • At least one product exists in your store so customers have something to add to a cart and apply the coupon on.

Where to go

  1. Open the left navigation in your SGEN admin.
  2. Click Store Management → Coupons (or open /sg-admin/ecommerce/coupons directly). The coupons list loads.
  3. Click the Add New Coupon button in the top-right of the list. The create form opens.

Steps

1. Enter a code your customers will type

The Coupon Code field is the string a customer types into their cart. Keep it short, memorable, and uppercase by convention — WELCOME5, SPRING10, PARTNER. Characters allowed are letters, numbers, and hyphens. Do not include spaces — the form will reject them with "Spaces are not allowed in your coupon code".

If you want a hard-to-guess code, click the Generate Code button to the right of the field and the form fills in a random 8-character string.

2. Add an internal description

The Description field is a note only you see. Customers never see it. Use it to remember why a coupon exists — "$5 off — newsletter sign-up — auto-email included", or "$10 off — partner ABC — contract expires June 30". Descriptions save time 6 months later when you review your coupons.

3. Pick the discount type — use Fixed cart discount

The Discount Type dropdown has two options: Fixed cart discount (a dollar amount comes off the cart subtotal — use this one) and Percentage discount (not reliable right now — avoid until further notice).

4. Enter the dollar amount

The Coupon Amount is a whole dollar figure subtracted from the subtotal. Common choices: 5, 10, 15, 20. You can enter decimal amounts like 7.50 if your prices end in odd amounts.

If a customer's cart subtotal is less than the coupon amount, the cart total becomes $0.00 — they pay nothing for the items but shipping, tax, and any surcharge still apply depending on your shipping and tax configuration.

5. Optionally, cap how many times the coupon can be redeemed

Two separate limit fields control redemption volume: Usage limit per coupon (total redemptions across all customers — leave blank for unlimited) and Usage limit per user (how many times the same customer can use this code — set to 1 for one-per-customer promotions). The stricter one wins.

6. Optionally, restrict to specific customers

The Allowed user multi-select is for coupons that should only work for named customer accounts — a support-recovery coupon for a specific complaint, a dealer promotion for your three wholesale accounts, a win-back code for a churned customer. Click the field to get a searchable dropdown of every customer in your Users list. Pick one or more. Only those customer accounts can redeem the code, and only when they are signed in. Leave the field empty to let anyone with the code redeem it.

7. Leave the expiry date blank

The Coupon Expiry Date field has a known issue being addressed. Leave it blank — your coupon will then stay active until you manually move it to Draft or Trash. When a campaign ends, return to the coupon list, hover the row, click Edit, set the Status to Draft, save — the code stops working immediately.

8. Set Status to Publish

The Status dropdown in the right-hand sidebar has two values: Publish (the coupon is live; customers can use the code right away) and Draft (the coupon is saved but not usable on the cart — use Draft while you are composing a campaign and not ready to go live yet). Leave Status on Publish for a ready-to-go code.

9. Click Create a Coupon

The Create a Coupon button in the sidebar saves the code. The screen refreshes to the edit form for your new coupon with a green Coupon has been successfully created! message at the top.

What success looks like

  • The green Coupon has been successfully created! message appears at the top of the edit form after you click Create a Coupon.
  • Returning to the Coupons list via the back arrow (or Store Management → Coupons) shows your new code as a row with the type, dollar amount, and your chosen status.
  • Opening your store in a fresh browser window, adding the Canvas Tote Bag ($30) to a cart, going to /cart/, typing your code into the Have a coupon? field, and clicking apply shows the discount line and a reduced total ($25.00 on a $30 cart with a $5 OFF coupon).

Finding and editing your coupons later

Every coupon you save sits in one list at Store Management → Coupons. The list shows all coupons at once with tab counts at the top (Published / Draft / Trash). To edit a coupon, click the code in the list to open its edit form, change whichever field you want, and click Update a Coupon in the right-hand sidebar.

Common edits:

  • Flip Status from Publish to Draft when a campaign ends, then back to Publish if the campaign returns.
  • Tighten Usage limit per coupon downwards when a code goes more viral than expected.
  • Change the Coupon Amount mid-campaign (new customers get the new amount; past orders keep the amount they paid).

What to do if it does not work

  • "Coupon code does not exist" at checkout even though I just created it. Check the coupon's Status in the admin — it must be Publish, not Draft. A Draft coupon does not work on the public cart. Re-save with Status set to Publish.
  • "Coupon code does not exist" but I know the code is Published. If you picked specific customers under Allowed user, only those customer accounts can redeem the code, and the customer must be signed in. Either unset Allowed user (to let everyone use the code) or have the customer sign in.
  • "Coupon code is already exists" when I click Create a Coupon. Another coupon (possibly a Draft one or a trashed one) already uses that exact code. Pick a new code, or go to the list, switch to the Trash tab, and permanently delete any trashed coupon with the same code to free the name.
  • "Spaces are not allowed in your coupon code". Remove any space characters from the code. Use hyphens (SPRING-SALE) or underscores (SPRING_SALE) instead.
  • Customer reports the cart subtotal going to $0 when they apply a small coupon. If the coupon's Discount Type is set to Percentage, this is the known issue being addressed — switch the coupon to Fixed cart discount or move it to Draft.
  • I can not find the coupon field on my public cart. Check Ecommerce → Configuration → Purchase Flow → Enable coupons on cart — that toggle must be on. If it is off, your coupons exist but customers never see where to type them.

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