Automatic Coupons with PrestaShop

I debated around what to name this post, there were so many different ways to go with it. One title I thought about was “How to Beat MAP Pricing with PrestaShop”. But then a lot of retailers do not use MAP pricing, so they would pass over the article. I also had a couple of titles that featured exit intent, but then I figured people would not know what that is either. So I settled on the current title. I think no matter what kind of marketing you are trying to do, this article should help you automate the process a little bit. As a disclaimer, this article does feature two paid products 40 Nuggets and MailChimp. But I do think both products used together are well worth the cost, because they can help capture lost sales.

I am sure you are wondering what I am babbling about. I had a client come to we with a unique problem a couple of months back. He sells products that have what is called MAP pricing. It means that he cannot advertise the price lower than what the manufacturer sets the price as. But as the same time he is allowed to sell the product for any price he wants, but again, he can only have it set for the price the manufacturer allows on his site. We came up with a solution, we wanted to offer people coupons on the specific products. This way he would still be inside of his MAP guidelines, but still be able to offer an incentive for people to purchase the products.

What we ended up deciding on using was 40 Nuggets in combination with MailChimp. If you are not familiar with 40 Nuggets, they have a pop up marketing software. Theirs is a little different and more affordable than most however. One of the main differences with their is that it will hook into MailChimp to allow you to gather emails for a mailing list. One huge feature that makes it different to is that it supports exit intent marketing as well. If you are not familiar with exit intent marketing, the whole premise is pretty cool. On a basic level the software waits until a user is about to either close the tab or hit the back button to fire the pop up. This way you can target a user that is about to leave your shop and make them a customer.

Where does MailChimp come in?

This is where things start to get a little complicated. MailChimp has free accounts that most people are familiar with, but they also have an account that runs $10 a month for most users. This account has a feature that is called Automation by the guys at MailChimp. What this feature does is allows you to automate what happens when people sign up to different mailing lists. This in combination with 40 Nuggets becomes a very powerful part of the equation.

How do you use this magic?

The first thing you have to do to is create a new list in MailChimp. Each coupon you want to offer will need its own list. This will also give you great segments in MailChimp for the future as well. Once you list is created, you will need to go to the Automation heading in MailChimp and create a new Automation flow. Like in the image above you will need to select the Welcome Message Automation flow. In the flow you can design the email that you want sent when people are added to the list. This is where you insert your coupon code that you created in PrestaShop. You can craft the email to also offer other products that can be used with the same discount as well to try to sway the customer with other choices.

Next in 40 Nuggets you will need to create a different pop up advertisement for each page that you are wanting to offer a discount on. In 40 nuggets you can connect each pop up to a different mailing list in your MailChimp account as well. This is where the magic comes in. You create pop up A to subscribe people to a mailing list that sends them a coupon to the product that they are currently viewing.

This works two fold. It might recover the sale, which makes you money. If it doesn’t recover the sale, you have a name and an email address that you can market to in the future. Also you know what kind of products they like as well, so you can better market to them.

Using these two products together is a very powerful tool in increasing your sales and marketing to clients. They can be set up in a couple of hours and afterwards you will constantly be marketing new products or discounts to your clients increasing your sales, lowering your cart abandonment rates, and growing your mailing list sign ups as well.