First of all, giving everyone a referral URL works great in a web only world but what if you're advertising on a Podcast (or gasp print or radio), is it easier to tell people to type in www.mysite.com/coupon to their browser or is it easier to tell people to enter COUPON at checkout?
Secondly, the amount of people who are going to have this adverse reaction to the mere existence of the coupon code field is vanishingly small. Most customers who don't have a code will just ignore it and move on (and actually many who have been told about a code will not even use it) only a small minority will bother searching for a code to enter when they don't have one.
Whatever web site had a coupon code field that made you this angry probably had at least 20 much worse UI violations they should prioritize above trying to eliminate the coupon field.
I've abandoned a couple purchases because of that coupon code box. I go search for one and realize that they do regular promotions so I wait for one, usually to never come back and make a purchase.
I've abandoned purchases as well. When I know I might be missing out on a coupon, I go hunt for it. Most of the time I don't find the coupon I'm looking for, but I do stumble across (coupons for) other products, which might offer a better deal. I end up purchasing those, or not purchasing anything anymore.
Instinctively I agree with the author: when a customer has effectively made a purchase decision, a webshop shouldn't divert him to random pages on the internet, unless there is a mechanism in place that leads to extra sales. Showing a coupon box during one of the final phases of the purchasing process is a way of diverting customers to random pages on the internet.
I've done the same. The coupon code box screams, "You're a sucker if you don't have a code to put in here."
I go searching for a code. I find a few great ones that have expired but nothing active right now. Now I can continue my purchase and feel like a chump or abandon my cart. The latter usually wins.
I'd say that a coupon code box runs a distant third behind surprise high shipping rates and sites I've never heard of that don't accept third-party payment sites and instead want my credit card info. Nope.
Technically speaking, a credit card is a third-party payment system ;)
But, I still get your point. Ridiculous shipping charges has definitely led to me abandoning a cart more often then coupon code boxes. Although, I still prefer it when sites just tell me what the shipping is before I put the item in my cart. Not telling me before I have to fill in anything more than a zip code tends to be a sign of high shipping charges and sometimes leads to me going to a competitors website without even checking what it will cost to ship.
Another problem with coupon codes is they allow for affiliate commission stealing. Say someone visits a site via an affiliate URL and they are about to checkout when they notice the coupon code field. They Google coupon codes and find a site that says you have to use their URL (as many do). Now the coupon code site gets credit for the referral. On the surface this doesn't seem like a big problem but it is very common.
- Go to buy a product, get all the way up to the checkout and abandon for an unrelated reason
- Go back and purchase the product at full price
- Get an email with a discount code for abandoning my cart the first time
Left a very unpleasant feeling of being stooged. If I'd only known to abandon my cart first...
"This PayPal/Comscore study found that 27% of potential buyers abandoned their shopping cart because they had to go look for a coupon code.
Another study found that removing the promo code box improved conversion from 3.8% to 5.1%"
Didn't read the study but I wonder if those numbers take into account the positive benefit of using the coupon box.
In other words you do a promotion offering a discount to increase sales. The result of the promotion is an increase of x but also a decrease of y because of abandonment. It seems (by the way you phrase the summary) that the study only concluded the negative aspect and not the upside to the coupon code. (Once again I didn't read the study so I am just asking.)
This is just one example. The problem is that different sites / products attract different types of persons. In our ecommerce site, we noticed almost no difference in conversions.
We use coupon codes to track our marketing efforts.
Could the coupon box "train" customers to jump on deals when offered? Perhaps that is the seller's hope, and that it is about a relationship and revenue stream into the future.
(I'm not saying this "training" is a net win for the seller, but I can see "loyalty" as one of their goals.)
At my company we've tested having the coupon box automatically filled in vs. not automatically filled in and we found that conversions were no higher by automatically filling it in.
And if you want to be focused purely on the bottom line; conversions were just as high without it automatically filled in but coupon usage was notably lower; meaning automatically filling in the coupon was just giving away money.
I suspect that people don't trust a merchant-supplied coupon.
A also suspect this is why when you Google "landsend coupons" the #1 site is a UGC coupon-sharing site and #2 is the merchant's own site. By every traditional measure, the merchant's page should outrank the coupon site.
Why would you trust a coupon sharing site more? The merchant has an incentive to only give you some token discount, whereas the "crowd" has no such incentive. So you're more likely to trust the crowd in this scenario.
The parent wasn't claiming this; they were merely adding a single data point about a relevant topic! I for one had not thought about pre-filling the coupon code box before, and I'm glad the parent brought it to my attention.
The grandparent tested the idea, that showing a coupon which is already filled and active, will carry an illusion of a bargain and hence the customer will be more likely to convert.
"At my company we've tested having the coupon box automatically filled in vs. not automatically filled in and we found that conversions were no higher by automatically filling it in."
What are you filling it in with and what type of discount did the coupon apply to the purchase?
So are you saying that for the purposes of testing you took a loss on the sale in order to see if there was abandonment?
Some places like Newegg put the promo code on the item page itself, so it's basically like giving it to everyone who buys the item. In this case, there's no loss on the sale.
When you look at the big picture findings from this survey, it makes you realize: 20-40% of people will abandon a cart for ANY reason.
And none of these "studies" have looked into what the conversion rates for people who DO use coupons are. When you introduce a coupon to a good customer, or at the right moment, does that INCREASE conversions? I'd would bet good money the answer is yes. And I would bet you money that that increase outweighs the seemingly random "25% of people quit a cart for every possible reason."
There is no such thing as a one-sided effect.
BTW -- abandoning a cart is not the same thing as quitting a checkout in progress. Beginning the checkout process is a much bigger indicator of intention than putting stuff in your cart. Many people just put stuff in their cart as a kind of shopping list, or "I might want to look at this more later." Which is no doubt why cart abandonment rates are so high.
I abandoned a merchant, not just my shopping cart because of that.
advanceautoparts or something. was buying from them, got to the checkout, searched for coupons, found that they have 25%+ coupons going on year around.
I can't possibly buy from a site that has all it's prices upmarked by at least 25% to begin with.
People are different. I do what he described every single time I see the coupon code when I wouldn't have thought about searching for one. I would have been happily enjoying my purchase instead to cruising junky ad filled sites looking for a discount.
It's simple loss aversion. Instead of people seeing their purchase as a gain, they think about what they're losing by not having a coupon.
It's interesting. I sometimes sigh when I see a discount box because I know I'm going to spend the next 10 minutes searching for a code.
For me, not having the box would have meant I "knew" I was getting the best deal. Having the box and failing to find a code means I "failed" at getting the best deal, even if there wasn't a better deal to be had.
Finding a code sometimes makes me think, "am I allowed to use it?" but of course, I'd try anyway and yes, can be pleased if I get the magical 10-15% off.
I wonder if your response would be different if the language around the coupon code was different. Instead of just a "Coupon code:" label, something that deterred you from entering one.
That's got me thinking. I suspect it might. The psychology behind it form me is not to be getting a worse deal than everyone else. If everyone else can enter a discount code, then I should be able to as well.
But if the code is targeted at a specific set of customers that I know I don't fall into, then I would probably overlook.
Things like:
- Student discount
- Over 60s discount
- Job seekers discount
But finding the right label that doesn't offend, and right way to validate the authenticity of the customer's eligibility, is no trivial task.
That's right: it's about the psychology post-purchase. How does the buyer feel? Do they feel good about their experience, or is there a nagging feeling of having missed out on a deal?
I do the same thing. The article described my sentiments exactly... I feel like I'm missing out on something. Especially for a bigger purchase, a 10% off coupon can save $100-200 and is worth waiting for sometimes
"This is a pretty ridiculous complaint" - No offense, but this is a ridiculous complaint. You totally sidestepped the point of the article - what message are you sending to your full price paying customer?
Imagine you're side by side with a guy in two checkout lines and by chance you have the same 6 items. Both of you get rung up and it comes out to $100 on the display. At that point, you reach for your card. The other guy though, reaches over to the cashier and does a wiggly weird handshake. The cashier smiles knowingly, hits a button and boom it says $86. You've got no recourse to complain. The items you picked up were clearly marked and you accepted the total amount. You start to notice how every 5th person does the goofy weird handshake? Feel like shopping there again next time?
And, usually, I shrug those coupons off because they are $.60 off of a product I wasn't going to buy in the first place, so I don't care.
On the other hand, if I buy something at Bed, Bath and Beyond or almost any clothing retailer without a 20% off coupon, I do indeed feel like a chump. If the cashier in a store I've never been in before asks 'do you have any coupons?' after ringing me up, I definetly feel like I've screwed up, but I'll still finish my purchase because, well, instant gratification and societal expectations and all that. But I'm not going to go back to that store until I DO have coupon.
So maybe it depends. If your shtick is 'Never pay full price and find ridiculous discounts,' coupon fields might be the way to go, as long as you always have coupons available. But if you expect even some customers to pay full price, having your cashiers ask everyone for coupons is probably not the best practice.
And you're offered those coupons all the time in newspapers and magazines but decide they're not worth the hassle. Here the first time you even discover coupons is at the checkout
If you first discover that coupons exist at the cashier, you must be an alien going to a store for the first time.
You hit the nail on the head with the first part of your comment -- you decided they weren't worth the time, and therefore you don't save the money. You don't huffily dump your items and leave the line. No, you think, "Hm, maybe I should clip coupons next time." (Although, of course, you don't.)
"If you first discover that coupons exist at the cashier, you must be an alien going to a store for the first time.'
I guess the risk of using an analogy is they eventually break down if you go too crazy on them. I made it a "real world" example to look at the online experience another way so that people could perhaps relate to the original's author pet peeve. I think if the author of this original article felt like he understood how to get a coupon for the site he was on and decided not to anyway he wouldn't have written the article. Subtle but important point here.
This is not analogous, and you should know that. The invested effort of going to a store is a lot higher. Look at the abandonment rates of average grocery store visits compared to even the highest-conversion website and it should be obvious how this analogy falls apart.
No I don't shop in stores that I know give out coupons.
Biggest one is Bed Bath Beyond. If for some reason Amazon can't wait and I need it now, no way in hell am I buying a product from that store w/o the 20% off coupon
I see people use coupons all the time. By the time I get to the register, I've already effectively "accepted the total amount." Coupons don't bother me.
Why would they? Moreover, why would I want to complain?
I disagree. Coupon code forms make some customers second guess themselves at checkout. The fewer steps required to purchase something result in higher completed orders. See Amazon one-click
I disagree with the main part of your sentiment. I think they're already there after they've filled in billing/shipping info, so seeing the blank coupon code field is actually not a deterrent at that point. It's just as easy to skip that field and press the button for Checkout as it is when that field isn't there. The coupon field just adds the possibility of getting a better deal with some Google searches.
So you have a customer that's just about to buy your product, and you're sending them away from your site? I mean, as a consumer I like discounts, but as a programmer I really want my customers to just click checkout at that point.
Speaking personally, I don't think the existence of a coupon field ever makes me abandon a purchase entirely. However, it does affect how I feel about checking out: if I find a coupon code and save some amount of money, I feel good about it; if I can't find one that works, I feel like I'm "missing out" and paying more than I have to.
I could kind of imagine it in a world where the concept of coupons was invented on the web and e-commerce "coupon code" fields were the only place people encountered it.
But of course that's not the world we live in. Our mailboxes get stuffed full of coupons. We get them on our receipts. We get them in our e-mail. We get them in newspapers and magazines and even attached to the very products we're buying.
We're all used to the concept. Roughly nobody is getting upset at the idea that there might be some coupon out there that they don't happen to have at the moment.
Have you ever gone to the grocer and been stopped by the checker just before you hand them or swipe your credit card to ask if you're sure you don't have any coupons for any of the items in your cart?
If you have the checker might have grabbed a copy of the Sunday insert they had sitting there and scanned the $1 off coupon for that one item you happened to pick up but didn't know was actually on sale, or 95% of the time the checker doesn't even bother you about such things. By offering a coupon code box on your checkout page, you're effectively saying "Hey, we might have put a coupon in last Sunday's newspaper, but obviously you aren't special enough to have received it and we aren't going to be nice by offering it to everyone to gain customer loyalty."
If you want to do an affiliate-type discount for a single item, do it through URL parameters stored into a cookie and consumed at checkout. If you want to do a Sunday-coupon-type discount for anyone willing to go find a coupon, offer it to everyone: "Do you have any coupons? Our latest promotions can be found at ..."
Edit: and if doing a Sunday-type coupon, have the box be conditionally shown. If your current promotion is for 10% off the purchase of a Foo widget, don't show it when the customer only has Bar sprockets in their cart. You're just losing conversion at that point.
Internet coupons are different from physical coupons. You can potentially find internet coupons by searching the web for 20 minutes, while if you're at the checkout at the grocery store, you're not going to go all the way home, look through the trash to find some coupons that were mailed to you a week prior and promptly thrown out.
The difference is the knowledge that there is a coupon for the particular item I'm buying, and the (in)convenience of finding that coupon.
I'm convinced that many, many people are "upset" about the idea that they're missing out on coupons. My wife is one of those people, she can't buy anything on the internet without searching her coupon sites first. And I know a lot of people like her. For me, it takes a conscious decision that "this is not worth it, I'll just pay whatever the price is and save the time and energy".
But of course that's not the world we live in. Our mailboxes get stuffed full of coupons. We get them on our receipts. We get them in our e-mail. We get them in newspapers and magazines and even attached to the very products we're buying.
Yes, and I am sick to the back teeth of this crap in my mailbox and encouraging me to keep bits of paper in my wallet yadda yadda. Coupons suck ass and I make a point of preferring retailers that don't use them.
BTW this isn't 'the world that we live in.' This is a largely American phenomenon. In many European countries you can tell the mail carrier that you don't accept junk mail.
>First of all, giving everyone a referral URL works great in a web only world but what if you're advertising on a Podcast (or gasp print or radio), is it easier to tell people to type in www.mysite.com/coupon to their browser or is it easier to tell people to enter COUPON at checkout?
Only lots of the companies that uses this practice never advertise on podcasts or radio.
>Secondly, the amount of people who are going to have this adverse reaction to the mere existence of the coupon code field is vanishingly small.
Citation needed.
>Most customers who don't have a code will just ignore it and move on
Of course, since there is nothing else they can do. The issue is if this leaves a bad taste on their mouth or not.
>Whatever web site had a coupon code field that made you this angry probably had at least 20 much worse UI violations they should prioritize above trying to eliminate the coupon field.
He could not care less about other UI violations compared to feeling a second-rate customer that has to pay more.
Or just don't show the box during period where there is no valid coupon code for any of the selected items? Half the complaint, and associated failed transactions, is around there not even being a currently running coupon campaign anyway.
But then why have coupons and just offer money off to everyone?
But then why have coupons and just offer money off to everyone?
Why would you offer a discount to people when you can make more money by not offering a discount? To me I see the coupon as a reward to the people that know about it. Plus if it's a promotion you are probably increasing the volume and taking away the price comparison for people that like to save. Plus maybe some loyalty knowing those guys always haave coupons.
Take GoDaddy for instance. They always have promotions running. If someone just wanted to purchase a domain they would go on there and pay $12 but if they wanted to save money they could drive the price down to as low as $2.49 (in some cases). They are not losing money at that price and will even make more in the long run since they didn't lose you to namecheap and for the rest of the time you own it with them you will be paying $8-10 with the convenience of auto-renew.
This complaint comes from the discussion about affiliate marketing on this site yesterday. A large number of affiliates make there money with coupon sites apparently, taking advantage of this exact scenario. People see coupon, then they google for it.
If you think this blog post looks familiar, it is.
The checkout page should have the lowest friction possible. Coupon boxes make people hunt for them. Anytime a customer leaves your store there's a chance they may not come back. This applies to physical stores too.
> is it easier to tell people to type in www.mysite.com/coupon to their browser or is it easier to tell people to enter COUPON at checkout?
I hear URLs spelled out in radio ads all the time. If this were 1996 you might have a valid point, but not in 2013.
I don't really have a comment one way or another about what you said here, however... comparing UI violations to something that reminds someone that they're not 'one of the cool kids' that knows the 'secret code to saving money' is a bit apples to oranges, I think.
One might offend your eyes, the other (can be) more personal.
I do not think "ridiculous" means what you think it means.
1) I personally have abandoned checkout carts when I realized they offered big discounts and I didn't have one right then.
2) Alternatively, the coupon code box has very often reminded me to go find a coupon - and pay less than I was already willing to pay.
My behavior is normal human behavior. You can debate whether (1) is "logical," but the checkout process should maximize profit from real human beings, not theoretically logical ones.
I would argue that remembering and entering a coupon is just as hard as remembering and entering a sub-directory name in a URL. In fact, finding the coupon code box can sometimes be a pain. It's not always on the first page in the ordering process.
First of all, giving everyone a referral URL works great in a web only world but what if you're advertising on a Podcast (or gasp print or radio), is it easier to tell people to type in www.mysite.com/coupon to their browser or is it easier to tell people to enter COUPON at checkout?
Secondly, the amount of people who are going to have this adverse reaction to the mere existence of the coupon code field is vanishingly small. Most customers who don't have a code will just ignore it and move on (and actually many who have been told about a code will not even use it) only a small minority will bother searching for a code to enter when they don't have one.
Whatever web site had a coupon code field that made you this angry probably had at least 20 much worse UI violations they should prioritize above trying to eliminate the coupon field.