General disposition about the coupon system

To be honest, I was very impressed before buying this application that you had created a coupon system in it. i thought that was a cool addition and didn't even realize at the time just how much I could see using it for different things until I started working with PS4. It's a great marketing tool.

Unfortunately, I have to report that I really think you've fallen down here on implementation. It's a nice gimmick but it's really lacking and actually doesn't even work the way one could be lead to believe it is supposed to.

First, a bit of inspiration for what I hope will be a clean up for the developers and polished in the next mini release of the code.

Coupons are a great idea!!! They're about marketing and the ability to "guage" marketing intent. By offering coupons you have a tracking mechanism and can get a feel for how a marketing attempt works. So I publish a circular in a large local weekly newspaper with a bit of advertising and a coupon code. I get to see how well that advertising money is spent through coupon tracking.

Suppose I want to run a funding channel for a worthy cause. I can use a coupon to track sales and kick back a percentage of the sales to the worthy cause.

Your coupon development, though there, really doesn't embellish much more than a "discount" in the way it's done and even then it doesn't do a very good job. This can be corrected by first allowing the coupon system to work with a 0% discount so it can just be used for tracking.

The web form that depicts the invoice actually shows the coupon "name" but the emailed invoice shows nothing but a discount. Why? Seems like an oversight. When someone uses a coupon they want to see it printed in the hard copy so they know it's been applied properly. This also provides a feedback when one is tracking sales and wants to donate a portion of those sales to a worthy cause!

Next, after working more with the coupon codes this weekend I've noticed that I can use a coupon code on each purchase. I currently have two products in my store and two coupon codes. I create and order and purchase one of the items with one coupon code and then purchase the other item with the other coupon code. In both cases because both items are listed in the coupon configuration as eligible for coupon purchases, the order screen allows me to input a code. But the summary screen only shows on coupon code, the final order screen only shows one coupon code, the email invoice shows no coupon code and the order table shows one oder with one coupon code. Basically, you make it appear that I can use different codes for different products but you are not tracking that at all. You're taking on coupon code and applying it to both products purchased in one order.

This needs to be worked on. it's a great idea and can really be meaningful to a merchant. I guess it's a good start but please get the developers to work on the fine details and get this straightened out. It's not really working the way it should and with a bit of tweaking could be so much more useful. Beyond that make it visible. I realize that you use your own internal ID for mapping and storing the codes but make them visible as the customer uses them with the title and the code on the screen invoice and provide them in the email invoice. That's an oversight on the part of the developers and it should have been there in the beginning.

I would also stress that it should be possible to have more than one coupon applied to one invoice and that should be listed next to the product it's associated with. As much as you think coupons are about discounts, they are really more about tracking markets. They can also be used to identify retailers you sell to wholesale. Please get this straightened out and working properly!!! Would like to see this in the next minor release of PS4!!

I've been able to find a fault in the coupon system through testing. Running two coupons in PS4 I've logged on as a user and initiated a purchase using a coupon, then logged off and re-logged on as the same user and used the other coupon code in PS4 and it prints the wrong coupon used (the coupon title from the first purchase) on the screen order review invoice.

It's not making a change in the coupon used even when logging off as the user and logging on again. It's like the coupon first used by the user is cached with the user rather than looking up the appropriate coupon code submitted at checkout.

This is a serious problem. The more I work with the coupon system the more I'm loosing confidence that it's actually working correctly and providing me with appropriate feedback that it's obvious what's being used as the coupon code. This really needs to be address and corrected ASAP.

Yes, you are correct, the coupon system of power store was created with discounts in mind.


It is not really intended as a means for tracking purposes. a much better tool for tracking is to use Google analytics. This allows you to track incoming links to the store to determine where they are coming from.

We appreciate your feed back and will consider adding more tracking features in a future release.

If there are other features you would like to see considered, please post them to the wishlist forum.



As for the coupon name showing in the order receipt page, that is not something that the power store files do out of the box. you would need to edit the code to achieve this.

to show the coupon code for the order you will need to edit the orders_detail.php, the admin/orders_detail.php

on the orders_detail.php page:
change the recordset code:

$query_WADAorders = sprintf("SELECT * FROM ps4_orders LEFT OUTER JOIN ps4_users ON OrderUserID = UserID WHERE OrderID = %s AND UserID = %s", GetSQLValueString($ParamOrderID_WADAorders, "int"),GetSQLValueString($ParamUserID_WADAorders, "int"));

to:

$query_WADAorders = sprintf("SELECT * FROM ps4_orders LEFT OUTER JOIN ps4_users ON OrderUserID = UserID INNER JOIN ps4_coupons ON ps4_orders.OrderCoupon = ps4_coupons.CouponID WHERE OrderID = %s AND UserID = %s", GetSQLValueString($ParamOrderID_WADAorders, "int"),GetSQLValueString($ParamUserID_WADAorders, "int"));

you can then add the display of the coupon code under the section that shows ho much you saved.


edit the following code:

<tr>
<td class="label">You Saved:</td>
<td>-$<?php echo number_format($totalDiscount, 2); ?></td>
</tr>

to:

<tr>
<td class="label">You Saved:</td>
<td>-$<?php echo number_format($totalDiscount, 2); ?></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="label">coupon code:</td>
<td><?php echo $row_WADAorders['CouponCode']; ?></td>
</tr>

you will need to make similar changes on the admin/orders_detail.php. change the recordset code:


to:

$query_WADAorders = sprintf("SELECT * FROM ps4_orders LEFT OUTER JOIN ps4_users ON OrderUserID = UserID INNER JOIN ps4_coupons ON ps4_orders.OrderCoupon = ps4_coupons.CouponID WHERE OrderID = %s OR ( -1= %s AND OrderID= %s)", GetSQLValueString($ParamOrderID_WADAorders, "int"),GetSQLValueString($ParamOrderID2_WADAorders, "int"),GetSQLValueString($ParamSessionOrderID_WADAorders, "int"));

then add the code to display the coupon code under the discount.

change:

<p>
                <label class="readonly-bottom">Discount:</label>
                                <span class="discount errorText">-$<?php echo(number_format($totalDiscount,2)); ?></span>
              </p>

to:

<p>
                <label class="readonly-bottom">Discount:</label>
                                <span class="discount errorText">-$<?php echo(number_format($totalDiscount,2)); ?></span>
              </p>
                <p>
                <label class="readonly-bottom">coupon code::</label>
                                <span class="discount errorText"><?php echo $row_WADAorders['CouponCode']; ?></span>
               </p>

to show the coupon code in the recipt email, you could edit the line of code that shows the discount:

<tr>
          <td style="text-align:left; font-weight:bold; color:#2D2B2E; /* Text_Dark */ padding: 10px 5px 10px 7px; border-top:solid 1px #FFFFFF; /* Global_White */">Discounts</td>
          <td style="text-align:right; padding: 10px 14px 10px 5px; border-top:solid 1px #FFFFFF; /* Global_White */     color: #666666; /* Global_Gray */">-<?php echo WA_eCart_DisplayMoney($WA_Store_Cart, $WA_Store_Cart->GetDiscounts()); ?></td>
        </tr>

to also show the code used:

<tr>
          <td style="text-align:left; font-weight:bold; color:#2D2B2E; /* Text_Dark */ padding: 10px 5px 10px 7px; border-top:solid 1px #FFFFFF; /* Global_White */">Discounts <?php echo(isset($_SESSION['WA_ECart_Coupons'])?"Code Used: ".$_SESSION['WA_ECart_Coupons']."":""); ?></td>
          <td style="text-align:right; padding: 10px 14px 10px 5px; border-top:solid 1px #FFFFFF; /* Global_White */     color: #666666; /* Global_Gray */">-<?php echo WA_eCart_DisplayMoney($WA_Store_Cart, $WA_Store_Cart->GetDiscounts()); ?></td>
        </tr>

you would need to make this change in the WA_UniversalEmail/Email_Tempaltes/recipt.php, pp_recipt.php and admin_recipt.php files.

Jason,

Thanks for your in-depth reply. I will start pouring over the changes and see where it takes me.

I want to be clear about something. What I refer to as "tracking" has nothing to do with Google or tracking visitors to the store site!

When I talk about tracking I'm referring to tracking "marketing campaigns". This is about using a marketing concept and associating a coupon code to the marketing concept and "tracking" how successful the marketing concept worked.

Again, as an example. I have a local newspaper in St. Louis called the Riverfront Times that puts out a weekly issue. They have a huge circulation and I could/can purchase from them an "insert" to their weekly circulation. Let's say the insert has some company information, some pictures of the products being offered and a coupon code!

The weekly issue goes out with the insert I paid to piggyback in the issue and people find the insert in the issue. A percentage of those will go to the site and look over the products and a percentage of those will actually choose to purchase something and use the coupon code! That coupon code allows me to build a framework for how well that particular marketing campaign is working. If I don't generate enough sales to offset the cost of the insert then it's not worth using the marketing campaign again. The coupon code then becomes the means of "tracking" the success of the marketing campaign. It has nothing to do with Google and tracking the number of visitors to the site.

In this way, your coupon code could be very effective at helping a store owner. As I mentioned elsewhere, it also would allow a store owner to set up a marketing campaign around helping to fund non-profits with a kick-back from sales if your developers would allow a coupon to be created with a 0% discount. This allows a store owner to sale at full purchase price yet "track" the sale associated through a coupon code to set aside money to kick back to the non-profit they are helping to fund. It's a marketing campaign to help raise funds for an organization. The coupon code allows the store owner to "track" those people purchasing the product because they want a piece of the proceeds to go to the non-profit organization.

You have all the necessary ingredients to allow store owners to do this. It just needs a bit of tweaking to make it possible to use this way and there really should be a better coupon administration capability built into storemanager. I have another post on weaknesses and even flaws in coupon issues, management, etc.

Again, thanks for the pointers. Hope they can help me in working through what I need to do. I'll let you know as I get through out outline of instructions.

~Kim

You wrote in your response:

As for the coupon name showing in the order receipt page, that is not something that the poser store files do out of the box. you would need to edit the code to achieve this.

What are the "poser store files". I have no idea what you are talking about...

~Kim

The PS4 order page invoice does show the coupon "title" on the on-screen receipt and indicates that it's sending a copy of that screen to the email address but the emailed invoice is very different from the on-screen invoice. It's being done with the on-screen invoice, it was just overlooked on the email invoice.

~Kim

My apologies, that was a typo, it should read:

As for the coupon name showing in the order receipt page, that is not something that the power store files....


again, any additional functionality you think should be added to power store, you should post to the Wish List forum.


when you say:
The PS4 order page invoice does show the coupon "title" on the on-screen receipt and indicates that it's sending

which specific page are you referring to here?

please post a URL to the page so i know exactly which page you are talking about.

I've attached three screen shots. The first is the cart page. What's significant here is this:

Before ordering the stuff in the cart I went into storemanager and made one coupon code (4bhm6x). It was associated in storemanager with only the first picture in the cart. The discount was for 00.01%. After adding the first picture and submitting the coupon code with it I went to "continue shopping" and selected the second picture in the cart that had NO coupon codes associated with it. If you look at the cart it totaled the amount of both pictures and discounted both pictures with the coupon code.

The second attachment is a screen grab of the confirm order screen that displays on submit order. It very distinctly shows in the information on the bottom right the "coupon title" of Botanical Garden. This was the "title" I gave the coupon when I created it. The last attachment is the checkout_success.php screen grab. This is supplied after the submit button is clicked at the bottom of the confirm order screen. It too, very distinctly indicates the coupon "title" in the information block to the right of the discount applied. It also indicated at the top of the page:
Thanks for your order!
Please save or print this receipt for your records. Do not refresh this page or attempt to open it in another window. A copy of this reciept has been emailed to you.

But the emailed copy of the receipt does not reflect the same information as the emailed response. The emailed response does not show the coupon "title" just the discount.

I'm actually concerned about the fact that the coupon code once submitted with a product is being figured into the discount pricing for all the products being purchased. The store manager definitely makes a designation between applying coupons to all products and allowing you to chose which products it's associated with but this does not appear to be working properly.

Finally, the fourth attachment is a screen grab of the emailed receipt showing no coupon title. And for what it's worth I think that the difference between the on-screen order receipt number and the order number on the email receipt is very confusing!! I realize having looked at the code that the on-screen order number is embedded in date stamps where the emailed receipt is just the standing order number count from the order no. field in the order data table but showing two different order numbers causes confusion to the customer. They don't really match on inspection.


~kim

I don't see how you can see the screen shots well enough to be able to discern what I'm talking about. I reviewed my post and the shots are minimized on upload to the extent of not being viewable. They don't look that way from the original. If you send me your email account I'll mail them to you. I can't give you a page link because they are all part of the checkout process in PS4 you'd have to go into the shop and create a user account and order something to see what I'm talking about.

shop.dreamlight-studio.com

~Kim

OK, I can see where you are referring to here.

I am trying to go through and reproduce the issues you are reporting, but cannot.

if I use one coupon and checkout, then create a new order an checkout using a different coupon, it is showing the correct coupon name for me.


you could try adding the following code on the checkout success at the very bottom:

<?php

if(isset($_SESSION['WA_Ecart_Coupon_ID'])) unset($_SESSION['WA_Ecart_Coupon_ID']);

if(isset($_SESSION['WA_ECart_Coupons'])) unset($_SESSION['WA_Ecart_Coupon_ID']);

if(isset($_SESSION['WA_Ecart_Coupon_Name'])) unset($_SESSION['WA_Ecart_Coupon_ID']);

if(isset($_SESSION['WADbSearch1_coupons_Results'])) unset($_SESSION['WADbSearch1_coupons_Results']);

?>

this will clear any coupons that are applied on success.

I am also not able to reproduce a problem where a coupon applied to certain products is applying to all. Maybe you have applied the coupon to the category? Testing a coupon that is applied to only one product, I can see in the cart line item details that only the price for the intended product is struck through and adjusted.

In my initial reply, i gave instructions for how you can add the coupon code used to the email. You could also adjust the code in the email to use the same order number as the success page.