You can create conditional and unconditional promotions to boost sales, run seasonal campaigns, or clear slow-moving inventory.

Promotions are flexible to set up—you can apply discounts to specific items or brands, and tailor offers for different customers. For example, offer 30% off all products during Black Friday, except one brand, while giving VIP customers $150 off selected categories.

In this article, you will get an overview of all promos that you can create and how they work.

How promotions in Retail POS work

Before you dive deep into types of promotions and discount codes, take some time to learn how promotions and discount codes work in Lightspeed Retail POS.

Promotions in POS are versatile to set up as you can:

• Set up discounts for specific products, categories, brands, or suppliers. You can exclude specific products to get a precise promotion.
• Choose between a simple amount off discount and condition-based discounts. For example, you can specify the minimum amount customers need to spend before they can get a discount to encourage them to purchase more. 
• Choose the reward that customers get—free item, more Loyalty rewards, less price for more items, etc.
• Select where to apply promotions—in physical stores, in your eCom online shop, or both. What is more, you can choose in which locations run a promo if you have more than one store. 
• Control promo duration—you can schedule promotions and run limited-time offers such as weekend or seasonal campaigns.
• Create customer–specific promotions. That means you can offer different discounts to different customer groups like your stuff, wholesale customers, and so on. Promotions based on customer groups are available for eCom only if you enable customer group sync.
• Create promo codes instead of regular promotions that your cashiers can enter during checkout.
• There are rules for how multiple promotions are applied. If several promotions share the same conditions, the POS automatically applies the best available deal at checkout. If a product qualifies for different promotions (for example, “15% off shirts” and “30% off summer collection”), the promotion created first takes priority. 

Basic promotions (Amount off discounts)

The amount off discounts is a basic promotion that provides a percentage or a fixed amount off an order, such as 25% or $50. 

You can choose items to apply discounts to—across the entire catalog, on specific products, categories, brands, or even suppliers. You can run discounts both in your brick-and-mortar stores and in your eCom online store. 

Learn how to create the amount off discounts →  

Conditional promotions (Buy X get Y)

In addition to the amount off discounts, you can create conditional discounts with specific purchase requirements for a customer to receive a discount or reward—“Buy X get Y”. 

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. 
• 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. 
• 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. 
• 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”. 
• 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. 
• 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. 

Learn how to create multi-save and conditional discounts →

Promo codes for discounts

A promo code is a code that a customer can use to get a discount when making a purchase. You can use it for both amount off and Buy X get Y promotions to limit your discounts to specific customer groups. 

Learn how to create discount codes →

Free shipping promotions (for eCom sales)

When you sell online with Lightspeed eCom, you can offer your customers discounted or free shipping on specific items or categories, or on the entire catalog during hot seasons such as Black Friday. Free shipping is widely considered the most desirable discount in e-commerce, with 70% to 90% of consumers citing it as a top incentive to shop online

Learn how to create shipping discounts →

Applying several promotions for a same product

When you run a lot of promotions, keep in mind that products that are qualified for multiple different discounts, will get only one discount. That depends on the type of promotion that applies to them.

Products that can have different discounts based on the purchased volume. For volume-based promotions, the POS applies the best deal. For example, if you offer 10% off 2 shirts and 30% off 3 shirts, a customer buying 4 shirts will receive 30% off.

Products that apply for different discounts. For example, you can offer 10% off summer clothing and 15% off all t-shirts, so one shirt can apply for both promos. In that case, the promotion created first takes priority. If a 10% discount was set up before a 15% discount and both apply to the same shirt, the customer only gets 10% off.