How to choose quantity discount tiers for a WooCommerce shop
A quantity discount says “the more you buy, the less you pay per item”. It works because many customers will add one more if there is a reason to. It fails when the tiers are chosen by feel and the margin is checked afterwards.
Which products suit it
A quantity discount makes sense when a customer might reasonably want more than one.
- Things that get used up or replaced: coffee, notebooks, filters, cleaning supplies.
- Things bought for several people: mugs, T-shirts, party items.
- Low-priced items where one unit is easy to add to.
It makes little sense for a single expensive item, or a product where nobody wants two. Switch the discount on only for the products that fit.
Start with three tiers
For most shops, two to three tiers are enough. More than that is hard to read on a product page.
| Items | Discount |
|---|---|
| 2 | 5% |
| 3 | 10% |
| 5 | 15% |
Start the first tier at 2, which is the smallest step up from what customers do now. Then look at your orders. If most orders already contain three of the product, a tier at 3 will give a discount to people who would have bought anyway. Put the first tier just above the quantity customers usually buy.
Check the margin at each step
Take a product that sells for 20 and costs you 8. The discount applies to every unit, not only the extra ones.
| Items | Price each | Order total | Your profit | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20.00 | 20.00 | 12.00 | 60% |
| 2 | 19.00 | 38.00 | 22.00 | 58% |
| 3 | 18.00 | 54.00 | 30.00 | 56% |
| 5 | 17.00 | 85.00 | 45.00 | 53% |
The margin per item falls a little, but the profit per order rises, because customers buy more. That’s the point of the discount. Do this sum for your own product, with your own costs, and if the margin at the top tier is lower than you accept, lower that discount.
A product with a thin margin can take a smaller discount or none. Give each product the tiers it can afford.
Two kinds of table
- One shop-wide table for products with similar margins. Change it once and every product that uses it follows.
- A table for one product when it needs something different. A cheap item can take a larger discount at higher quantities, such as 20% from 3 and 30% from 6.
Keep the steps meaningful
A discount of 1% isn’t worth a customer’s attention, and a discount above 30% on a normal product teaches people to wait for it. Steps of about 5 percentage points are easy to see and easy to afford.
Tell people about it
A tier nobody knows about does nothing. Show the table on the product page and a reminder in the cart. How to tell customers about a quantity discount covers the wording.
Doing this with C4D Buy More Save More
Our plugin C4D Buy More Save More sets a default table of 2, 3 and 5 items, a minimum quantity of 2 or more and a discount from 1 to 90%. You switch it on per product, and a product can have its own table. Quantities of a variable product count together, so one small and two large make 3. It is finished and coming to WordPress.org soon. The setup is explained in Tiers and how quantity is counted.