The Coupons Help Thread

Andy

We've finally unveiled a fantastic, beautiful coupons feature for our pros. Our help pages are the first line of defense against confusion, so check there for lots of great info.

Got questions or problems that we didn't cover? Post right here in this thread.

BeachBill

Okay so I've set up some test coupons to see how it all works... now I want to delete them and don't see any way to do it.

How do we delete coupons?

AnneMcBean

BeachBill wrote:

Okay so I've set up some test coupons to see how it all works... now I want to delete them and don't see any way to do it.

How do we delete coupons?

Well, actually, that bit is coming hot on the heels of this release...

For now, you can just set the expiration date to today and it'll expire at midnight Pacific time.

(If anyone encounters a situation where they've handed out a code but goofed and need to disable a coupon immediately, simply change the code itself and the old code will no longer be accepted in the cart. )

-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero

UWsmugger

Printing Coupons
I've made up a few coupons, is there a way to print them so we can hand them out and also email them to clients? If it's there I do not see it.

twincitiesphoto

How do we share this coupon code with a customer - do we just email them the code or can we send one of those 'fancy' share emails with with a link to a gallery/image that tells them about the code?

Andy

twincitiesphoto wrote:

How do we share this coupon code with a customer - do we just email them the code or can we send one of those 'fancy' share emails with with a link to a gallery/image that tells them about the code?

Yes, share the code by email, smoke signal, phone call, carrier pigeon or share email!

Andy

UWsmugger wrote:

I've made up a few coupons, is there a way to print them so we can hand them out and also email them to clients? If it's there I do not see it.

We may add such a feature, but here's one way right now

twincitiesphoto

Thanks for the clarification on how to share- I was confused because when you create a coupon it makes a nice display image so I thought that was what would be sent out via email - but now I see from your other reply that you can actually use that for printing purposes - gotcha.

Thanks.

NostalgicDad

First of all, thanks to you guys for implementing this feature.

I'm interested in offering coupons for specific items that don't seem to get much interest supposedly due to the higher cost, such as metallic prints for example. Maybe I'm not seeing it early on in wrapping my brain around this great feature, but is there a way to apply a coupon to only items such as 8x10, metallic, etc.?

As I see it now, a coupon will only apply to an order no matter what they have decided to purchase. Whatever the case for now, I'm stoked about having the ability to offer discounts!

Malte

Will the cart accept more than one coupon?
Let's say you're giving print credit and the customer gets a few bucks left over, can that leftover be used with another coupon?


Malte

Andy

Malte wrote:

Let's say you're giving print credit and the customer gets a few bucks left over, can that leftover be used with another coupon?


Malte

No, I'm very sorry, not at this time, Malte.

Andy

NostalgicDad wrote:

Maybe I'm not seeing it early on in wrapping my brain around this great feature,

No, not at the moment, sorry.... and we state this in our help section as well: http://www.smugmug.com/help/coupon-codes

NostalgicDad

Andy wrote:

No, not at the moment, sorry.... and we state this in our help section as well: http://www.smugmug.com/help/coupon-codes

Thx. Should have read that bottom paragraph I guess.......

lukaitis photo

I have a question regarding limited use.

If I send a thank you code to each buyer with a 10% off your next order code and limit it to one use do I have to create a different coupon for each customer or is each ip registered differently?

Thanks

Andy

MakeMeShutter wrote:

Is this a broken link or a problem on my end.

Busted link, we'll fix it. It should go here:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/coupon-codes

Thanks for showing us!

bwg

MakeMeShutter wrote:

Not sure if this is a broken link or what, I went to manage coupons while logged in. I then saw a gray box that said ready to create coupon. I noticed the optional link to "read more" on the "ready to create coupon" window, I clicked on it and was brought to an empty help page.

Is this a broken link or a problem on my end.

See below images.

whoops. i forgot to update that link. the (help) link next to Manage Coupons will take you to the proper help page. I'll fix the other one. thanks.

Andy

lukaitis photo wrote:

I have a question regarding limited use.

If I send a thank you code to each buyer with a 10% off your next order code and limit it to one use do I have to create a different coupon for each customer or is each ip registered differently?

Thanks

For this use case, a different coupon per customer.

Mox

Andy wrote:

We may add such a feature, but here's one way right now

Thank you, thank you, thank you all for your hard work on this!!

Andy, how did you generate that image? It would be lovely to post something like that for Facebook fans or to include such an image in an email. I'm not finding a place where the coupon image is saved, though. Are screen grabs ok to use if there isn't an automatic way to save them?

Sorry, I read the help link, but I'm not finding this.

Thank you!

mbellot

Mox wrote:

Thank you, thank you, thank you all for your hard work on this!!

Andy, how did you generate that image? It would be lovely to post something like that for Facebook fans or to include such an image in an email. I'm not finding a place where the coupon image is saved, though. Are screen grabs ok to use if there isn't an automatic way to save them?

Sorry, I read the help link, but I'm not finding this.

Thank you!

Wild guess, but its probably the result of a screen capture.

Mox

Except that it doesn't look the same. I'm happy to upload and link to a screen cap, but if there's a simpler way, I'd like to educate myself. Thanks.

echmrr

On <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:date w:st="on" Year="09" Day="20" Month="10" ls="trans">10/20/09</st1:date> I asked the following question:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
“I am curious about how these coupons will work with respect to my account and commissions. For instance: say I give a client a photo credit of $10 and they purchase $20 worth of images. Would SM keep a 15% commission of $10 or $20?”<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
“Originally Posted by Baldy
To answer a couple of questions: We only take our percentage on the sale amount after the coupon is applied.”<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
Baldy later followed that up with: “Thanks for the example. Our guiding principle is that 97% of people will be fair. Yes, the Blair Witch filmmakers shot the film on camcorders that they returned to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Circuit</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">City</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> after shooting the film, but they're the 3%. We hate to make the system harder for the honest.”<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
Now today, I was reading your coupon help section and I saw this:<o:p></o:p>
“In the case of a print credit, the base cost of the prints as well as SmugMug's 15% share of any markup would be charged to your card on file.”<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
If this is indeed true, I am extremely irritated with this decision. I asked this specific question and based on the answers I received, planned my strategy accordingly. What a waist of time. Since Pros set our own prices, it shouldn’t make any difference to SM what the “markup” is. It’s the after coupon/credit “profit” that should matter. I would really like to hear an explanation from SM for this decision.<o:p></o:p>

Malte

echmrr wrote:

...“Originally Posted by Baldy
To answer a couple of questions: We only take our percentage on the sale amount after the coupon is applied.”<o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p>...

...Now today, I was reading your coupon help section and I saw this:<o:p></o:p>
“In the case of a print credit, the base cost of the prints as well as SmugMug's 15% share of any markup would be charged to your card on file.”<o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p>

I reacted to this too but then I thought, they have to make some money, for providing the service. It does feel strange though, that if I make no profit, SmugMug will take theirs out of me.

Malte

Dan7312

Coupons for Family and Friends
I have a pro account but don't use it as pro's would 'cause I'm not a pro photog. So I don't set any prices on my pages, I just use the ones that are there to get prints for myself. I think the following works, but just want to confirm it.

So even though I just leave the default prices in place there is no reason I can't give coupons to my family or friends, for example when I take pictures at a nephews birthday party. They pick the pictures, coffee mugs, whatever they want and I end up paying for them, so it ends up being a gift from me to them. And maybe for free somebody would want one of my pictures

Also I guess I don't see why coupons are restricted to Pro accounts. I think quite a few people would like to gift their parents/children/relatives some really well processed prints of the pictures they have taken and a coupon would be a great way to do this. It would be like sending them a department store gift card only a lot more personal.

It seems like from SmugMug's point of view non-Pro coupons would get more print sales from non-Pro accounts? Gift cards work for retail stores, why wouldn't they work for SmugMug?

rsquared

echmrr wrote:

Now today, I was reading your coupon help section and I saw this:<o:p></o:p>
“In the case of a print credit, the base cost of the prints as well as SmugMug's 15% share of any markup would be charged to your card on file.”<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
If this is indeed true, I am extremely irritated with this decision. I asked this specific question and based on the answers I received, planned my strategy accordingly. What a waist of time. Since Pros set our own prices, it shouldn’t make any difference to SM what the “markup” is. It’s the after coupon/credit “profit” that should matter. I would really like to hear an explanation from SM for this decision.<o:p></o:p>

Because at the top of the page is this: Print Credit - This functions just like a gift card. If a customer does not use it up in an order, the balance will remain to use on future orders. You can optionally set a start and end date for its use.

The way I took that, they're assuming if you're giving a Print Credit coupon, you're selling it as a gift card. So in other words, Person A buys a gift card from you for $100. They give it to Person B for Christmas who then goes and spends it on your site. As far as what get's spent, this is no different from Person A buying photos from your site, and then giving those to Person B (Except Person B wouldn't get to choose the photos).

If you look back at the options, Print Credit and Amount Off seem to be identical, other than deciding whether SM gets some profit. The intent seems to be that Amount Off would be used as a coupon, and Print Credit would be used as a gift certificate (that you would sell for face value!) This is where the assumption that 97% of people will be honest comes in (e.g. assuming you're not going to sell Amount Off coupons as gift certificates to bypass giving SM any of the profit.)

AnneMcBean

Malte wrote:

I reacted to this too but then I thought, they have to make some money, for providing the service. It does feel strange though, that if I make no profit, SmugMug will take theirs out of me.

Malte

I'm sorry Baldy's initial response doesn't jive with how we ultimately implemented print credits.

On those, we keep 15% on the markup before the print credit is applied. In the case of Amount Off and Percent Off coupons, we keep 15% of the markup AFTER the coupon is applied. The difference is, a print credit is considered a form of payment, just like a credit card.

Think of the case where we sell general SmugMug print credits (not announcing a feature, just saying hypothetically). Or a future case where we allow a bride's guest to purchase a print credit from SmugMug to give to the bride for spending on a specific pro's site. The customer pays SmugMug in those cases, and we dole out 85% profit where applicable depending on what the customer orders and from whom. The profit breakdown is still 85/15, even though a customer is using a gift card (print credit) to pay for part or all of the order, instead of a credit card.

A pro-generated print credit is essentially a back door for the pro to issue the exact same type of print credit, but restrict it to his site.

In a case where the order is for $10 worth of prints and the pro has them marked up to $110 and the customer has a $110 credit issued by the pro.... we could charge the pro $110 (for purchasing a $110 gift card) and then pay his $85 profit, but instead we are simply reducing the amount we charge him by his share of the profit. So he only owes us $25 for that gift card instead of $110 . If a bride's guest purchased that same print credit for the bride, and the bride placed the same order... we would pay the pro his $85 profit.

Any more clear now?

-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero

rsquared

Dan7312 wrote:

I have a pro account but don't use it as pro's would 'cause I'm not a pro photog. So I don't set any prices on my pages, I just use the ones that are there to get prints for myself. I think the following works, but just want to confirm it.

So even though I just leave the default prices in place there is no reason I can't give coupons to my family or friends, for example when I take pictures at a nephews birthday party. They pick the pictures, coffee mugs, whatever they want and I end up paying for them, so it ends up being a gift from me to them. And maybe for free somebody would want one of my pictures

Sounds like this would work using an Amount Off coupon that was at least the value of the item. They would still have to pay the shipping, and since you're prices are set at the base cost, you would be charged the full base cost that they saved...

AnneMcBean

rsquared wrote:

If you look back at the options, Print Credit and Amount Off seem to be identical, other than deciding whether SM gets some profit. The intent seems to be that Amount Off would be used as a coupon, and Print Credit would be used as a gift certificate (that you would sell for face value!) This is where the assumption that 97% of people will be honest comes in (e.g. assuming you're not going to sell Amount Off coupons as gift certificates to bypass giving SM any of the profit.)

Yep, the two can appear very similar when applied to an order, but there are some significant differences in functionality. Notably, a print credit balance can be rolled over into subsequent orders. An Amount Off coupon is fresh with every order.

-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero

Dan7312

But if the Amount Off was big enough it would cover the shipping too, right? The example on coupons help page shows the amount off being applied to the total cost, including shipping. It's just that if I gift something I really want to gift it.

From the help page and examples it's not clear if an At Cost coupon applies to shipping... does it?

rsquared wrote:

Sounds like this would work using an Amount Off coupon that was at least the value of the item. They would still have to pay the shipping, and since you're prices are set at the base cost, you would be charged the full base cost that they saved...

AnneMcBean

Dan7312 wrote:

But if the Amount Off was big enough it would cover the shipping too, right? The example on coupons help page shows the amount off being applied to the total cost, including shipping. It's just that if I gift something I really want to gift it.

From the help page and examples it's not clear if an At Cost coupon applies to shipping... does it?

I'm not really sure how an "At Cost" coupon would apply to shipping?

The easy answer is that no coupons (including print credits) currently apply to shipping. Currently every order (except a digital download only order) would require at least some payment by credit card by the customer.

-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero

AnneMcBean

Dan7312 wrote:

So even though I just leave the default prices in place there is no reason I can't give coupons to my family or friends, for example when I take pictures at a nephews birthday party. They pick the pictures, coffee mugs, whatever they want and I end up paying for them, so it ends up being a gift from me to them. And maybe for free somebody would want one of my pictures

I just want to confirm that yes, coupons can/do apply to all images on your site whether they have markup or not.

-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero

AnneMcBean

Dan7312 wrote:

The example on coupons help page shows the amount off being applied to the total cost, including shipping.

Can you point me to where the help page gave you that impression? It's actually incorrect and I want to make sure our docs are as clear as possible. Thanks!

-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero