The coupon feedback thread

Baldy · June 27, 2008

bigWebGuy is thoroughly exhausted after releasing the shopping cart and he has some tuning to finish, like banning the color button for pros.

But... Then he's ready to work coupons. We wanted to check that we're up to date on the latest coupon feature list. Far as I know, it's:

1. The ability to set fixed dollar amounts or percentages.

2. Ability to set an expiration date. I heard a little rumbling about wanting to set a number of uses/coupon. Is that important?

3. Ability to withdraw coupon amounts from pro profits and if the reserve isn't high enough, then charge the card on file to make up the difference.

4. Some reporting.

We hope you're not asking to make coupons gallery-specific, because that's hard.

Your thoughts.

brjphoto · June 27, 2008

barb

Baldy wrote:

bigWebGuy is thoroughly exhausted after releasing the shopping cart and he has some tuning to finish, like banning the color button for pros.

But... Then he's ready to work coupons. We wanted to check that we're up to date on the latest coupon feature list. Far as I know, it's:

1. The ability to set fixed dollar amounts or percentages.

2. Ability to set an expiration date. I heard a little rumbling about wanting to set a number of uses/coupon. Is that important?

3. Ability to withdraw coupon amounts from pro profits and if the reserve isn't high enough, then charge the card on file to make up the difference.

4. Some reporting.

We hope you're not asking to make coupons gallery-specific, because that's hard.

Your thoughts.

1. Yup - Percentages are what I'm looking for. Fixed dollar amounts... not so much. I need to be able to offer 10% off, 20% off, etc...

2. Yup - Number of uses doesn't bother me. It would be nice, but it isn't critical. As long as there is an expiration date, that would serve the same purpose for me. If people want to share the coupon, that just means more traffic to the website and more sales for me.

3. Yup, draw from the profits. I'm never going to offer a coupon that puts me in the negative so that doesn't really apply, but I can see where some would want that.

4. Yup, I kind of figure that if a coupon is used it will show up in the "Who loves ya" email and on the order summary sheet. Beyond that, I can keep track on my own. Maybe a tab that shows all active coupons for my account would be nice.

No, coupons do not need to be gallery specific. They can be global for all the pictures I sell.

One thought... will we be able to generate our own codes (i.e. dadsday) or will the code be a smugmug generated string (i.e. 3u2l8ytz)? You can guess which I would prefer. I suppose the tab that allows us to track active coupon codes could also be used to generate codes.

Allen · June 27, 2008

Baldy wrote:

..
We hope you're not asking to make coupons gallery-specific, because that's hard.

Your thoughts.

Event pros might not like this. I would imagine that they are for specific
shoots and not all past shoots.

mbellot · June 28, 2008

Baldy wrote:

2. Ability to set an expiration date. I heard a little rumbling about wanting to set a number of uses/coupon. Is that important?

Yes, fixed # of uses would be great. If setting a specific number is too difficult right off I'd be happy with one time use coupons.

Gallery specific (or, better for me category/subcategory specific) would be nice, but definitely NOT worth holding up the release.

Also, setting an optional minimum purchase for the coupon (like $5/10% off a minimum $50 purchase) would be very nice.

Self generated (by me) codes would be outstanding.

xris · June 28, 2008

Baldy wrote:

...We wanted to check that we're up to date on the latest coupon feature list....Your thoughts.

Thanks for asking!

barb

1/ Choice of features always helps. There are times I would like to offer a fixed percentage. But I'm also interested in giving free prints of a fixed size. "Have a free 5X7 on me" sort of thing.

2/ Expiration date and number of uses are important options. I may want to give a family member 40 percent off at all times, but I may want to give a perspective client only a restricted number of free prints.

3/ Haven't thought that one through. Taking from profits certainly makes sense, but I don't think I want to ding my card unless I have the ability to place limits on the coupons.

4/ Reporting is always good.

5/ The ability to specify applicable galleries would be a very useful feature too.

Other Thoughts:

A tab in the control panel for configuring and issuing coupons would be a great feature. It could double as a place to track coupon inventories and report coupon use too. Might even be a good spot to set up the 'thank you' inserts (mentioned in another thread) within a coupon profile.

Example coupon profile:

coupon number xyz123456 applies to gallery XXX.
It is good for one free 5X7.
It expires on December 32nd 2012.
'Thank you' note number 04 is to be added to the order.

Another quick thought:

An 'Enter Your Coupon Code Here' dialog could be useful in directing the client to the applicable gallery. That way I could set up a free print coupon and specify the applicable gallery in the coupon profile. When a coupon code is entered the client is taken directly to the gallery specified for that coupon. (Not sure how to make the coupon 'stick' to the client right through to the cart though.)

Placement of the 'Insert Coupon Code' dialog should probably be customizable. I may want it front and center on my home page, or I may choose to place it only on specific galleries, categories or subcategories.

Hope this helps!

iklimon · June 28, 2008

mbellot wrote:

Also, setting an optional minimum purchase for the coupon (like $5/10% off a minimum $50 purchase) would be very nice..

This one is very important to me. I want to encourage them to spend $50 or $100 and then get that all important 10% or 25% off.

Glory2Jesus4Photography · June 28, 2008

iklimon wrote:

This one is very important to me. I want to encourage them to spend $50 or $100 and then get that all important 10% or 25% off.

I agree with this and the ability to set the amounts would be very important.

Expiration or amount of times or a one time would also be good as well.
Select galleries to be applied to would be nice but not a show stopper.

Art Scott · June 28, 2008

+1 on the gallery or event specific.....

barb

ivar:ivar:ivar:ivar

thumb

bow

jasonscottphoto · June 28, 2008

Baldy wrote:

1. The ability to set fixed dollar amounts or percentages.

2. Ability to set an expiration date. I heard a little rumbling about wanting to set a number of uses/coupon. Is that important?

3. Ability to withdraw coupon amounts from pro profits and if the reserve isn't high enough, then charge the card on file to make up the difference.

4. Some reporting.

5. We hope you're not asking to make coupons gallery-specific, because that's hard.

1. Yes

2. Yes, but not super important to me

3. Would it withdraw the amount from the current order's profits? I mean, I can't imagine offering a coupon that would cost me MORE than the profit I am going to make off the current order...

4. Yes

5. Not important - We can just give the coupon code out to the people we want to have it

Re: Thank you prints - I would love to have a thank you print that has a coupon code on it to give to a friend for future orders! Would be nice to have multiple thank you prints and choose which ones go with which orders...

DavidTO · June 28, 2008

Can't you (pros) just make specific codes for specific events? Does it really have to be hard coded to be gallery specific?

mrcoons · June 28, 2008

3. Would it withdraw the amount from the current order's profits? I mean, I can't imagine offering a coupon that would cost me MORE than the profit I am going to make off the current order...

This is an interesting point. Can the interface where the pro sets up the coupon not allow the discount to be more than the profit? Then there isn't any question of where the money comes from.

xris · June 28, 2008

DavidTO wrote:

Can't you (pros) just make specific codes for specific events? Does it really have to be hard coded to be gallery specific?

I could probably get away without hard coding. But it would certainly be a nice feature to keep in mind for the future.

Thing is, I offer job-specific prints at a far lower cost than, say, art prints. So if I give a new client a coupon for four free 5x7s, I'd like them to use that coupon to order prints from their shoot. I don't want it to debase the cost of the art prints.

To re-state: The coupons don't have to be gallery specific, but it would be nice is I could block coupon use in certain galleries or categories or for certain products.

Sounds complicated, don't it?

ellarue · June 28, 2008

Print credits
I was wondering if there will be a "redeem your print credits" option? For those of us that do wedding photography and offer a print credit in the pricing, this would be an AWESOME feature. Or will the coupons be flexible enough to accommodate a feature such as that?

If the print credit option is feasible, how would payment on our end work?

I really think this would be a wonderful feature for most people and would drive higher profits for a lot of people.

Art Scott · June 28, 2008

DavidTO wrote:

Can't you (pros) just make specific codes for specific events? Does it really have to be hard coded to be gallery specific?

In my case an event is a separate gallery.....so event specific IS gallery specific also.................if I understand the hierarchy correctly....what is seen on the home page is the category...when category is cliked it brings up gallery.......right now with me that is where it ends....galleries are named for clients or clients events..................or will be as soon as I go public again

bkatz · June 28, 2008

xris wrote:

I could probably get away without hard coding. But it would certainly be a nice feature to keep in mind for the future.

Thing is, I offer job-specific prints at a far lower cost than, say, art prints. So if I give a new client a coupon for four free 5x7s, I'd like them to use that coupon to order prints from their shoot. I don't want it to debase the cost of the art prints.

To re-state: The coupons don't have to be gallery specific, but it would be nice is I could block coupon use in certain galleries or categories or for certain products.

Sounds complicated, don't it?

I certainly agree - I also price some sports galleries higher than others based upon teams etc or an agreement with the club. One of the things I will be doing is giving a discount for 2 weeks after an event.

I price my art/;nature galleries more than my sports galleries so a specific code for an event doesn't work if you can use that coupon anywhere....

bkatz · June 28, 2008

Baldy wrote:

bigWebGuy is thoroughly exhausted after releasing the shopping cart and he has some tuning to finish, like banning the color button for pros.

But... Then he's ready to work coupons. We wanted to check that we're up to date on the latest coupon feature list. Far as I know, it's:

1. The ability to set fixed dollar amounts or percentages.

2. Ability to set an expiration date. I heard a little rumbling about wanting to set a number of uses/coupon. Is that important?

3. Ability to withdraw coupon amounts from pro profits and if the reserve isn't high enough, then charge the card on file to make up the difference.

4. Some reporting.

We hope you're not asking to make coupons gallery-specific, because that's hard.

Your thoughts.

1) Great - although would also like to say buy 6 5x7 and get the 7th free

2) Expiration date

I would like to be able to also only a customer to use a coupon once - (I like being able to limit the number of uses but to me this is better) so they can get 10% or 20% off but they can't make 10 orders - works real well when I do it with a club this way.

3) Don't see the point for me really since I would want an order and then either add on or deduct - but I see the point

4)

Question - does smugmug take their 15% before the coupon or after the coupon? We are lowering our profit so if we take 10% off an order is that any different than doing the prices 10% less?

5) I personally like gallery specific since I charge more for my nature photos than my sport photos and I don't necessarily want to discount those.

jasonscottphoto · June 28, 2008

Baldy wrote:

We hope you're not asking to make coupons gallery-specific, because that's hard.

Your thoughts.

This may be a dumb question, but they WILL be owner specific, right? I mean, if someone orders from multiple smugmug users, the coupon will only apply to the user who created it, right?

bendruckerphoto · June 28, 2008

1. The ability to set fixed dollar amounts or percentages.

2. Ability to set an expiration date. I heard a little rumbling about wanting to set a number of uses/coupon. Is that important?

3. Ability to withdraw coupon amounts from pro profits and if the reserve isn't high enough, then charge the card on file to make up the difference.

4. Some reporting.

1)Yes, but also do things based on things in the order. For example, I might want to offer a free medium sized digital download with an order of a print larger than 8x10. Or 5 free 4x6's with an order of $100 or more.

2) Number of uses would be nice, but it isn't important to me that this is in the initial release. If I see that a coupon is being used heavily, I'll just disable it. It is important that I have the ability to make a coupon expire instantly at any time. If this could be accomplished by setting the expiration date to a previous date, then there doesn't need to be a special button for this. I also need the cart to report expired codes as expired when they're used, not just incorrect.

3)Sounds good. Most of the time I'd just be offering discounts, not free stuff that would need a credit card. It would be nice for discounts that aren't covered by that order's profit to come out of my pro profits that haven't been paid yet just in case. It would be nice if the $10 earned from referrals could be used for coupons as well.

4) Reporting would be nice. I don't need anything super flashy with graphs and whatever, just a little table with the order number, code used, and discount amount or something like that.

Baldy · June 28, 2008

To answer a couple of questions:

Yes, they would be owner specific and only apply to purchases of your photos.

We only take our percentage on the sale amount after the coupon is applied.

One reason the gallery-specific coupons get difficult is the possibility of buying from multiple galleries and do they expect to use multiple coupons and how do you explain it to them and report it to the pro without everyone squinting.

nipprdog · June 28, 2008

Baldy wrote:

Yes, they would be owner specific and only apply to purchases of your photos.

That gets my vote.

jfriend · June 28, 2008

Baldy wrote:

To answer a couple of questions:

Yes, they would be owner specific and only apply to purchases of your photos.

We only take our percentage on the sale amount after the coupon is applied.

One reason the gallery-specific coupons get difficult is the possibility of buying from multiple galleries and do they expect to use multiple coupons and how do you explain it to them and report it to the pro without everyone squinting.

Would it be so bad to tell the customer that if they want to use a coupon that's for a particular site, they have to place an order that only contains photos from that site.

If they also want to buy photos from another site, they can just place a separate order.

bkatz · June 28, 2008

Baldy wrote:

To answer a couple of questions:

Yes, they would be owner specific and only apply to purchases of your photos.

We only take our percentage on the sale amount after the coupon is applied.

One reason the gallery-specific coupons get difficult is the possibility of buying from multiple galleries and do they expect to use multiple coupons and how do you explain it to them and report it to the pro without everyone squinting.

I understand - on the other hand I would like you to limit the number of coupons - can't use 2 coupons therefore need 2 orders. That way I can limit an order to a gallery. It also sounds like you may be allowing stackable coupons - not huge fan of this.

I could deal with coupons that applied to categories sports vs nature etc. then I could do events based on categories or sub-categories which would accomplish the same thing for me more or less.

My assumption is that you are trying to get something done rather quickly and if I need to have coupons that can't do galleries yet and then you plan on refining it in the second go around I understand.

As you guys allow us too I am a big fan of customization and therefore I like more granularity (its also why I am waiting for sub sub categories) hence my opinions.

renstar · June 28, 2008

Baldy wrote:

One reason the gallery-specific coupons get difficult is the possibility of buying from multiple galleries and do they expect to use multiple coupons and how do you explain it to them and report it to the pro without everyone squinting.

I think this is something that people who use coupon codes on the internet (not all of your users, to be sure) are fairly familiar with. It is pretty common for a coupon to only apply to certain items in the cart. Most also allow you to enter more than one coupon provided they don't conflict or double up. My question is, mainly as a user since I am not a pro subscriber (yet) and submainly because this answers the quoted comment, where would the coupon be entered? If the coupon goes in when you make add the item to the cart then there should be no problem. If it goes in during the final stage (the checkout process), there might be confusion.

-r

jwalkeroh · June 28, 2008

Here's a thought. For pros add a couple fields to the gallery and let pros designate the coupon code and %. Then in the cart detect that a gallery has a coupon code set and enable an associated coupon code box. If the customer enters the correct code they get the % discount. Then when the coupon/discount period is up, the pro just removes the code from the gallery. Could be more sophisticated, but you get the point.

mbellot · June 29, 2008

Baldy wrote:

One reason the gallery-specific coupons get difficult is the possibility of buying from multiple galleries and do they expect to use multiple coupons and how do you explain it to them and report it to the pro without everyone squinting.

One thing to be careful of (at least for some of us), "gallery" specific coupons would need to be usable in multiple galleries.

When I shoot an event (such as a dance recital) I break things down into multiple galleries (30 to 40 is fairly typical) under a category/subcategory so that parents (I shoot kids mostly) can find the shots that are important to them without wading through hundreds of others.

I would want to be able to issue a coupon that would be good for pictures from any of those 30-40 galleries.

One other thing that would be super cool from a reporting standpoint. If I could give out a "buyatcost" coupon so that family members could buy photos at cost, but (finally!) the sales would show up in the control panel.

Baldy · June 29, 2008

bkatz wrote:

My assumption is that you are trying to get something done rather quickly and if I need to have coupons that can't do galleries yet and then you plan on refining it in the second go around I understand.

Yes, I'd really like to get something done quickly and not get bogged down by a complicated UI or support challenge.

That said, I don't mind considering gallery-based coupons if we can figure out how to do them simply.

We have a lot of time pressure to integrate with a pro lab and put some focus into additional products to sell before we get close to the 4th quarter because it's not possible to do it then (the labs get too busy). If we spend too much time on coupons we put those other things at risk.

Sometimes the forums and feedback to our help desk are in sync and in the case of coupons, that's the case -- everyone wants them.

Sometimes they're not so much in sync and integration with a pro lab seems to be one of those features where the heat is on in emails to the desk but not so much on the forums. Not sure exactly why.

dogwood · June 29, 2008

affdigphotos wrote:

Re: Thank you prints - I would love to have a thank you print that has a coupon code on it to give to a friend for future orders! Would be nice to have multiple thank you prints and choose which ones go with which orders...

This is a great idea.

Also, gotta cast my vote in favor of gallery/event specific coupons.

ellarue · June 29, 2008

ellarue wrote:

I was wondering if there will be a "redeem your print credits" option? For those of us that do wedding photography and offer a print credit in the pricing, this would be an AWESOME feature. Or will the coupons be flexible enough to accommodate a feature such as that?

If the print credit option is feasible, how would payment on our end work?

I really think this would be a wonderful feature for most people and would drive higher profits for a lot of people.

Is anyone able to answer my question? Pleeeeaaase?

Baldy · June 29, 2008

jfriend wrote:

Would it be so bad to tell the customer that if they want to use a coupon that's for a particular site, they have to place an order that only contains photos from that site.

If they also want to buy photos from another site, they can just place a separate order.

I wouldn't think so.

I'm surprised when multi-pro carts happen, and I don't have percentages on how often it happens, but we see it a lot.

One of my regrets is we haven't provided a search/browse interface for buying commercial photos. That would make a lot more mixed carts. We actually designed one and I posted about it but I let it get away from us because we got overwhelmed by the feature requests for rights-managed hierarchical keyword custom license yada yada, so we set it aside for things that wouldn't take forever to execute.

jfriend · June 29, 2008

Baldy wrote:

I wouldn't think so.

I'm surprised when multi-pro carts happen, and I don't have percentages on how often it happens, but we see it a lot.

One of my regrets is we haven't provided a search/browse interface for buying commercial photos. That would make a lot more mixed carts. We actually designed one and I posted about it but I let it get away from us because we got overwhelmed by the feature requests for rights-managed hierarchical keyword custom license yada yada, so we set it aside for things that wouldn't take forever to execute.

It seems very likely that many, many pros are going to want gallery-specific coupons. That's just how the real world (off the internet) works. A customer signs up for a deal that gets them some sort of discount on some specific product, not on any product the pro happens to offer. Photographers who do both event work and fine art work will likely want discounts to apply only to an appropriate event, not to all their works. Likewise, they don't want coupons given, sold or earned by one customer to be usable by a different customer for different goods. The best way to enforce all that is to allow coupons to be tied to a specific gallery, category or set of galleries that uniquely correspond to the customer you've given it to.

If you don't implement that now, then you will continue to see demand for it so it seems like it's worth thinking about in the original design even if it doesn't get implemented right away as that usually makes for less redesign later when you do try to implement it.

Since you said that multi-pro carts was one of the obstacles to an efficient implementation of gallery-specific coupons, I just suggested a trade-off to consider. Are more people going to be impacted by the lack of multi-pro-cart-coupons than by the lack of gallery-specific coupons? My intuition told me that not letting people do multi-pro-cart-coupons would be an acceptable tradeoff if it made gallery-specific coupons something that was a lot more doable. It's all a trade-off space. I'm not arguing that multi-pro-cart-coupons won't happen, just that it seems less important to support than gallery-specific coupons. Food for thought. Your decision.

sbressler · June 29, 2008

jfriend wrote:

It seems very likely that many, many pros are going to want gallery-specific coupons. That's just how the real world (off the internet) works. A customer signs up for a deal that gets them some sort of discount on some specific product, not on any product the pro happens to offer. Photographers who do both event work and fine art work will likely want discounts to apply only to an appropriate event, not to all their works. Likewise, they don't want coupons given, sold or earned by one customer to be usable by a different customer for different goods. The best way to enforce all that is to allow coupons to be tied to a specific gallery, category or set of galleries that uniquely correspond to the customer you've given it to.

If you don't implement that now, then you will continue to see demand for it so it seems like it's worth thinking about in the original design even if it doesn't get implemented right away as that usually makes for less redesign later when you do try to implement it.

Since you said that multi-pro carts was one of the obstacles to an efficient implementation of gallery-specific coupons, I just suggested a trade-off to consider. Are more people going to be impacted by the lack of multi-pro-cart-coupons than by the lack of gallery-specific coupons? My intuition told me that not letting people do multi-pro-cart-coupons would be an acceptable tradeoff if it made gallery-specific coupons something that was a lot more doable. It's all a trade-off space. I'm not arguing that multi-pro-cart-coupons won't happen, just that it seems less important to support than gallery-specific coupons. Food for thought. Your decision.

Some great thoughts, John. I'm also in support of gallery-specific coupons, and I wish I had some clever idea about how to do them.

I guess one of the most important questions for Baldy to answer is where customers are going to enter coupons. Is it on the gallery page, the add to cart LB, or while in the cart itself (what seems most logical).

I think if you just enter a coupon in the cart, you can then fade in discounts to the products to which the coupon applies and show them right next to the subtotals for those products, thus deducting from the totals. This is pretty much how Dell's cart works when you enter a coupon, and it has always seemed fairly straightforward and simple to use and understand to me.

The coupon feedback thread

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