Uploading Groupon vouchers for use with products (Classic Products)

Groupon offers great opportunities to reach new Customers with bulk voucher deals. With Checkfront, you can import and manage Groupon voucher codes, allowing Customers to redeem them on your website just as if they had paid by credit card. This guide shows you how to set this up with Classic Products, how to manage inventory and expiration, and what to watch out for.

Learn how to set up Groupon vouchers for use with products in Checkfront.

New to discount and voucher codes? Read the first article in this series for an introduction to discounts.

Accessing the features mentioned in this article

Where can I find this feature using the top menu?

• Inventory > Discounts
   

What more do I need to use this feature?

• Admin permissions to manage inventory or restricted permissions to View discounts and Manage discounts.
   

Which Checkfront version supports this feature - classic items, classic products, or both?

• This feature is available in both our classic item version (Inventory > Items) and our classic products version (Inventory > Products). 
  → Learn more about products

• NOTE: Some features are not yet available with classic products, including the Active Discounts report, discount rules, open discounts, edit columns, and the option to export your list of discounts.

Learn more about discounts for items For a detailed look at discounts and voucher codes for classic items instead, check out the following article: Introduction to discount and voucher codes (Classic Items)

Groupon and similar websites can be great ways to attract new Customers and quickly drive revenue for your business.

Suppose you're willing to offer a significant discount to attract many bookings. In that case, Groupon and similar solutions help you generate the number of Customers necessary to make the offer worthwhile.

Principles are the same regardless of service While the following article uses Groupon as an example, the principles remain the same regardless of your service, as long as you can receive or generate a list of voucher codes.

Groupon is an experiences marketplace that brings people more ways to get the most out of their city or wherever they may be. By enabling real-time mobile commerce across local businesses, live events, and travel destinations, Groupon helps people find and discover experiences–big and small, new and familiar–that make for a full, fun, and rewarding life. Groupon helps local businesses grow and strengthen Customer relationships, resulting in strong, vibrant communities.

Groupon works well for retail products, but it is challenging when the offering relates to a specific time. The complication with a schedule-based product is that although the Customer has already paid through Groupon, they have yet to schedule it with you, and those sales exist outside your booking system. If you are prepared for a burst of bookings, you could avoid an administrative nightmare and a host of unhappy Customers.

Our Checkfront and Groupon partnership can help you avoid this issue!

With Groupon, when you complete a deal, Customers receive a voucher (paid for at https://www.groupon.com/) to redeem your service. They also provide you, as the merchant, with a list of matching voucher codes to verify the sales.

With Checkfront, we offer merchants the ability to import voucher codes into the system and allow Customers to schedule and book online as if they were paying with a credit card. 

Once you upload your vouchers, you can redirect Customers to your website to make a booking and enter their voucher code. This feature significantly reduces call volumes and starts the Customer experience on the right foot.

To upload your Groupon vouchers for use with products, navigate to the Discounts page (Inventory > Discounts) and click + New Discount in the top left. 

1. Name your discount.
2. Specify the Amount of your discount.
3. Specify the Discount type.
4. Set your Discount period.
5. Select the Voucher code option under How to use this discount.
6. Click on the select a file box that appears on the left to upload your Comma-Separated Value (CSV) format file of voucher codes. Make sure the voucher codes are in Column A.
7. Select how to apply discounts, e.g., 25% per booking, after tax.
8. Select the products you wish the promotion to Apply To.
9. Click the Save button to save your discount, and you are done! 

We cover this in detail in previous articles in this series.

Checkfront schedules bookings for each voucher and closes the deal once Customers have used all vouchers or when you have set the deal to expire.

• Can I still process group bookings over the phone?

  Yes! Just log in to Checkfront and process the booking internally. Using the booking system to process phone bookings ensures you can correctly track bookings, inventory, and customers.
   

• Can I add an optional upsell to a non-free promotion?

  Yes! Adding an optional up-sell to a promotion is an excellent opportunity to offset some of the revenue lost to Groupon. You can add other upsell products from your inventory to the product (for example, a t-shirt).

  If a balance is due after the voucher code is applied, the Customer continues through the checkout process.

Next Steps

In the following article, we look at applying discount codes/vouchers from the Customer's perspective.

< Uploading Google Sheets to generate random codes    |  Applying discount codes/vouchers from the Customer perspective >