Getting Started: Setting up Coupons

Creating your First Coupon

Coupons in the eHungry.com system can be made to accomplish many of the common scenarios that restaurants require. However, that flexibility makes setting up a coupon a little confusing if you haven't done it before.

In their simplest form, coupons have a name, which would be something like "Free Brownies"; a coupon code, which is a short word that customers use to search for a coupon when they want to redeem one. An example might be "FREEBROWNIE". One reason why this is useful is if you run a print or in-store promotion encouraging customers to order online. You would print the coupon code(s) on your in-store or print materials, give them to your customers, and then when they checkout online, they can enter that coupon code to claim their discount.

All coupons have an expiration date. You must enter a future date to save your coupon. If you want to create a coupon that lasts "forever", just choose an expiration date that is very far in the future (say, thirty years).

Discounts can be expressed in terms of absolute dollars or as a percentage. How this value is interpreted depends a little on some other options you choose. In the simplest case, a "10% off" coupon means exactly that - a $100.00 order is reduced to $90.00 if the coupon is applied. However, it is possible to specify that a discount only be applied to certain menu items, and only if they are actually within a given order. In those cases, the discount might be interpreted differently.

Coupon Restrictions

You may specify that customers who wish to redeem the coupon have spent at least a minimum amount online or have placed at least a minimum number of orders. You can also require that they have ordered within a certain number of days from the time the order is placed.

The select box labeled "Only apply discount to these products" allows you to tell our system that you want the discount amount to be applied just to the selected menu items rather than to an entire order. You may select multiple products by pressing CTRL and then clicking all of the desired items in the select box while holding down CTRL. The select box labeled "Only apply to orders in which XXXX is also being purchased" allows you to require that customers also have selected one of these other items in the same order.

By default, coupons that are restricted to specific menu items (i.e., in which the discount is not applied to the entire order, but instead to a particular item that you specified within the order) are only applied to the first instance of those products in the order. So, a 10% discount, applied only to a "Brownie" menu item will take 10% off the price of the first and only the first brownie that the customer selects in that order, no matter how many others he or she may have added to their cart. However, if you want to allow the discount to apply to all brownies that are selected, you should check the box that is labeled "If this coupon applies to specific products only...".