Retail Coupons

Retail coupons are one-time (non-recurring) products that customers can purchase in the catalog. They are a type of third-party content product that increases customers' perceived value of your service offerings and provides you with new revenue opportunities. A retail coupon product in Service Design Center correlates with an offer or campaign by a retailer or other vendor. Customers can redeem the retail coupons through third-party channels, such as at the retailer or other vendor.

Retail coupons are different from manufacturer coupons. Retail coupons are redeemable at one specific retailer. Manufacturer coupons, such as a general "$5 off a Star Wars: Rogue One Blu-Ray" coupon that could be redeemed at any retailer, are a different type of coupon that would require complex integration challenges across multiple retailers by you or your aggregator/coupon management company. A similar retail coupon for this product could be created for a specific retailer, such as "$5 off a Star Wars: Rogue One Blu-Ray at Target."

You can use retail coupons to

Reward the loyalty of existing customers by offering retail coupons as incentives to retain service
Expand the relationship you have with existing customers by co-marketing with established and well-known brands
Create incentives to attract and acquire new customers by advertising weekly retail coupons available in the self-service app

Retail coupons are used for products and services at retailers and other vendors, typically with whom you have partnerships. Your customers could redeem these coupons at, for example,

A retailer's website (such as an Amazon or Wish coupon)
A retailer's app or game console (such as a coupon for a free ride on Lyft or a free Playstation game download)
A retailer's physical store (such as a coupon for a free coffee at Starbucks or for free breadsticks with a pizza order at Pizza Hut)

Coupons allow you to leverage your partnerships with product vendors. You can then differentiate yourself from your competitors by including coupon offers in your marketing campaigns. Some of the ways you can differentiate yourself could include:

Customer acquisition (such as "coupon for 50% off your next movie ticket for next 100 people who sign up for service" or "install our app to access coupons every week")
Top-up or purchase stimuli to your existing customer base (such as "buy a 10GB data plan and unlock unlimited coffee coupon at Starbucks" or "top up $100 to get tickets to an advance screening of the new Star Wards movie")

You can take advantage of all of {{tag.Product Name}}'s eCommerce capabilities with retail coupon products, including:

Help customers discover coupons by creating whole sections of your catalog containing coupons
Give away or make discounts on coupon products in offers (which is different from a coupon code in an offer)
Control which customers can see coupons and when customers can see coupons with restrictions. You can also use restrictions to limit the number of retail coupon products a single customer can buy to prevent the inventory of coupons from getting depleted too quickly
Promote coupons in notifications

In {{tag.Product Name}}, when you add a retail coupon product, you start by defining coupon codes in the retail coupon settings. The coupons can be one of two types, universal and unique, and before you start configuring a retail coupon product, it's important to understand the differences between the two types of coupons.

Choose the Correct Coupon Type: Universal or Unique

Why would you choose a universal coupon type over a unique coupon type? There are a few differences that may affect your choice.

Unique codes are good when

You or your partner want to collect analytics data about when and where each specific coupon was used and use that data to plan future advertising campaigns.
You want to ensure coupons are not shared with people who are not your customers. Unique coupons can be used only once, and if customers choose to share unique coupons, then they will have to purchase more to be able to use the coupons themselves. If customers do share unique coupons, which have a limit on the inventory based on how many codes are uploaded, and if the shared ones are used quickly, your customers who bought them may not be able to buy ones for themselves because the inventory has been depleted.

Universal codes are good when

You have an offer that turns out to be popular and you want to adjust the coupon inventory. Inventory adjustments can be made only for universal coupon types

Coupon Types

There are two types of retail coupons, universal and unique. The next two sections summarize each type.

Universal Retail Coupons

When you add a universal retail coupon product to your catalog, you enter a single coupon code in the product settings and you define the format by which the coupon will be rendered on customers' devices. This same code is given to every customer who gets the coupon. This code can be bought up to the number of times you define in the retail coupon product's Quantity setting, which is its inventory.

The inventory of a universal retail coupon product can be changed after you add the product to your catalog. You can increase or decrease the number of coupons available to customers at any time.

Unique Retail Coupons

When you add a unique retail coupon product to your catalog, you upload a file containing coupon codes. The file itself defines the retail coupon product's characteristics:

The format by which the coupon will be rendered on customers' devices. You put the format information on the first line of the file, which allows Service Design Center to validate the codes in the file while the file is being uploaded to make sure the codes in the file conform to the code format standard.
The inventory of the retail coupon product, which is the number of codes in the file. This number is fixed, is equal to the number of codes in the file, and it cannot be changed once you save a new retail coupon product.

Each coupon code is used exactly once. Once all codes are used, no more inventory is available for the retail coupon product because only one file can be uploaded per each retail coupon product.

In general, if you want to reward certain customer segments with coupons, you will want a one-to-one relationship between a unique coupon code and a subscriber, meaning you will want to make sure you have enough coupons for each subscriber in those segments.

Coupon Inventory

Unlike core service and other virtual products, retail coupons have a defined number of units available for customers to purchase. That number is known as the coupon product's inventory. As noted in the previous section, the inventory is defined by the number of codes in the coupon code file for unique retail coupons and the Quantity setting for universal retail coupons.

With the exception of a universal retail coupon with a Quantity setting of Unlimited, this means that at some point, the inventory of a retail coupon product will run out and customers will no longer be able to purchase that retail coupon product. (Unless it is a universal retail coupon and you choose to modify its inventory.) This can lead to one of two customer experiences: