Some ideas about a discount coupon system. I would like it to be possible to:
1. Issue/generate random coupon code numbers - as few or as many as I want. These numbers should be exportable to printer and/or text document.
2. Attribute either a fixed currency credit (any money value from 1-100 units?) or percentage discount (1-100%) to each code number.
(The problem with fixed currency credits is that they may exceed the purchase in value or they may not fully cover the purchase which would mean making extra payment. Either way means that customers would have to have a financial balance of account. Having account credit has been suggested in another thread and would allow customers to use bank transfers, cash payments etc to stock up their account with money allowing for instant advert payments/clearance. Basically a very useful idea.)
3. Attribute an expiry date to each code. Currency coupons would naturally be limited to only one use.
4. Attribute one or more categories/subcategories to the code, or the feature advert. Also ad packages when they are available.
5. Each code should only be used once and, when used, would become linked to a single customer account (to avoid people from passing around long-term discount codes etc).
6. It should be possible for management to directly credit these codes to existing customer accounts. "Yes, Mr Jones, you now have a permanent 50% discount. Just visit your control panel...."
Kmaisch suggests being able to offer discounts to clubs or forums. I see this as only possible if you have individual contact with each member. If you were to offer a single code number to a whole group of people (ie multiple use of a code) there would be abuse of the discount, basically anyone could use it. Each person needs to receive a unique code which means direct contact between each customer and management. Maybe this could be done by email, perhaps even automated. The simplest way if you can't directly give someone the coupon code is to use the method suggested in paragraph 6. above. Once someone has an account you can give them any type of discount you like, but it's a manual operation.
Midwestmedia suggests a coupon that can be used for a number of times and then expires. It's hard to see any need to limit the number of actual uses since the limitation can be made by time (expiry date) or money (coupon value). Does anyone see a real need for reusable codes?
So these are just suggestions for discussion, I'm sure there's a lot missing. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?
