You can create conditional promotions with specific purchase requirements for a customer to receive a discount or reward—Buy X get Y promos. The conditional promotions in POS are called “Advanced promotions”.

Advanced promotions help you to encourage customers to spend more, sell slow moving inventory, or reward loyal customers.

Types of conditional promotions

The “Buy X get Y” formula allows you to run different promo campaigns since it’s flexible to set up. During the promo creation, you select the “trigger” action that should happen and then the “reward” that a customer gets.

Here is the list of promotions that you can run with the Buy X get Y conditional discounts:

BOGO, or Buy One, Get One (for free). When a customer buys a certain item, they can get another item at the discount or for free. That can help you to dispose of some slow moving inventory or promote new items.

The “1+1=3” deal. Specify quantity for one or several items to buy to get a “gift” item. You can offer the “gift” product with a discount or for free. That helps to upsell the leftover stock with a discount or for free if customers buy them together with items that are selling well.

Bundle pricing. Offer a fixed deal for a set quantity. For example, buy 3 pairs of jeans for $240 when a single pair costs $100. Use this to increase basket size or when you need to clear overstock.

Tiered or progressive discounts. Encourage higher quantity per purchase by offering volume discount pricing across the same product such as “Buy 2 for $100, 3 for $120”. Multi-save promotions can help you to sell consumables or repeat-use items and maximize an average order size.

Spend-based promotions. Instead of specifying a minimum quantity of items to purchase, you can set a minimum purchase amount—spend X to get a discount or earn loyalty rewards. Discounts based on order subtotal can stimulate customers to spend more.

Customer-based discounts. You can apply promotions to specific groups of customers such as your staff members or wholesale customers. The discount will apply as soon as your cashiers enter a customer’s email at checkout or once a customer enters their email during online checkout. Discounts based on customer groups can be used as a reward program for your loyal customers.

Creating a conditional promotion

When you create an advanced discount, you select a trigger and the reward.

For trigger, you can choose:

• Buys the following item
• Spends the following amount

For reward, you can choose:

• Get the following items
• Save a certain amount
• Pay a fixed price
• Earn extra loyalty

To run a promo in eCom, you need to sync promotions first. Please note that some promotions may not be available yet for applying in eCom. Promotions based on customer groups are available for eCom only if you enable customer group sync.

To create a new advanced promotion: 

1. Go to Catalog > Promotions. 
2. Click Add promotion. 
3. Enter a name and a short description. If you sell online with eCom, only the name will appear at checkout so customers will see it. 
4. Choose where to run the promotion. To run promotions in eCom, you need to sync them first. 
5. Choose which outlets the promotion will apply to. If you select All outlets, any outlets you add during the promotion time period will have the promotion automatically applied. 

6. Choose the promotion frequency and specify the start date. The type of promotion can’t be changed later: 

   One-time promotion. Runs for a specific time period. This type is best used for end of season or holiday sales, or special promotions that don’t have a specific day or time. 

   Recurring promotion. Repeats on the same day and time every week. You can choose for it to run all day or between specific hours of the day. This type is best used for time-of-day promotions like early bird and happy hour specials, or to incentivize increased business on slower days of the week. 

7. In the Type of promotion, select Advanced. 
8. In the When a customer dropdown, select the condition of the promotion. 
9. Specify the quantity or amount and then select products to apply discount to. 
10. In the Then they will dropdown, select the reward. 
11. Specify reward settings. 
12. Tick the Show a prompt about this promotion on the Sell screen checkbox to include this promo to the sell screen. 
13. In the Target promotion, choose between making this discount available to everyone or limiting it to specific customers. 
14. In the Promotions combination section, tick the Customers can earn Loyalty rewards with this promotion box to let shoppers earn loyalty with this discount. 
15. (For in-store and online promotions) In the Promotions combination section, tick the Customers can apply online discount coupons with this promotion box. That way, customers will be able to use both promos and online coupons. Unticking checkbox means items included in promotion will not combine with coupons for online sales.
16. Click Save.

When you have a price book that applies to the same products, customers, outlets, and dates, both discounts will be applied. For example, if a customer group normally receives a 10% discount, applying a 10% off promotion will result in that customer group receiving 20% off.

Creating a tiered promotion

A progressive or tiered promotion is a type of discount where customers receive increasing benefits as they buy more. This "buy more, save more" model is designed to boost average order value (AOV) and encourage customers to increase their purchase volume. 

Example of progressive promotions would be: 

• Buy and save. Save 10% for buying 3 shirts. Save 20% for buying 4 shirts. 
• Buy for a fixed price. Buy 3 shirts for $15. Buy 5 shirts for $20. 
• Buy and earn loyalty. Buy 1-5 shirts and earn double Loyalty points. Buy 6-10 shirts and earn triple Loyalty points. 
• Buy and get. Buy 2 shirts, get 1 free. Buy 3 shirts, get 2 free. 

To speed up creating a progressive promotion, you first create a conditional promotion for the first “level” of discount. Then you duplicate it and change the conditions. For example, a first tier conditional promotion will offer 10% for 3 shirts. When you duplicate the promo, change it to offer 15% off for 5 shirts. 

Learn more about creating progressive promotions →