4 Best Ways to offer Groups & User-role discounts in your WooStore

We live in a time where more than 64% of online shoppers wait to buy things until they go on a discount or sale.

Whether it is groups, specific user roles (wholesalers, managers, etc.), or special customers on your WooStore; everybody is looking to buy at pocket-friendly rates.

Now, while offering discounts does have its advantages, like helping you increase the order value, gaining customer loyalty, attracting new customers, and so on,, the struggle often lies in finding the right ways that enable you to offer discounts smartly for different sets of customers on your website.

But, fret not! We’re here to help 🙂

Read on to know more about the 4 options you can use to implement discounts for groups and different user-roles in your WooStore.

[lwptoc numeration=”none” title=”4 Ways to offer Group/User-role specific discounts” skipHeadingLevel=”h3″ skipHeadingText=”*Wrapping Up,*”]

1. Use Membership plugins to create membership levels and offer discounts

Lots of businesses today are using membership plugins to segment their audience, protect their content, and provide different benefits to each segment.

Similarly, you too can use these plugins in your WooStore to create membership levels. Plus, you can set pricing and benefits accordingly for different groups of customers.

For e.g: Membership options can be created for students, boomers, wholesalers, dealers, frequent buyers, etc. depending on the customer base in your store.

Once the membership options are in place, you can then easily:

• Set different discount codes for each membership level or segment
• Offer discount on specific or all products for different membership levels
• Control and customize coupon expiry dates and set percentage or fixed discounts
• Send emails to market flash sales for different members

Having said that, remember this – the main purpose of a membership plugin is to protect your content by creating memberships. The discounts, however, are a secondary benefit that may not be offered by all membership plugins.

Pros & Cons of using a membership plugin for setting up discounts

PROS	CONS
1. Easily create membership levels as per your nature of business and customer base.	1. You’ll have to turn your website into a members-only site.
2. Set discounts for each membership level.	2. Some membership plugins may not offer discounting flexibility.
	3. Limited discount types to offer for your members.

If you think using a membership plugin is the right choice for you, explore this list of top membership plugins and their features to see if they fit your needs and are able to provide the discounting abilities.

2. Use Dynamic Pricing plugins to offer different types of personalized discounts

These are the plugins developed to empower you with the ability to create tons of pricing and discounting rules.

Be it guest users, registered users, wholesalers, managers, retailers, etc.; with a dynamic pricing plugin, you can set up personalized pricing & discounting rules for any customer in your WooStore.

In addition, you can even choose to apply discounts to a single or all products and attach the same to a specific customer, group, or user roles.

And, most of the dynamic pricing plugins also offer common discounting strategies like:

• Cart discounts
• Product category discounts, 
• Store-wide discounts, 
• Buy One Get One (BOGO) deals,
• Tiered pricing, etc. to boost your sales and profitability.

You can use these strategies to set up discounts for different user-roles, groups, and other customers.

Pros & Cons of using dynamic pricing plugin for discounts

PROS	CONS
1. These plugins are designed specifically to provide pricing and discount rules.	1. Too many pricing and discount functions to make you feel overwhelmed.
2. Allows you to set a variety of discount types for different sets of customers.
3. Saves loads of time and energy with automation.
4. The responsive repricing allows you to remain competitive with the markets.
5. Suitable for all businesses, especially if you have large product catalogs and a huge customer base.

Having said that, of course, each dynamic pricing plugin comes with its own set of features, so if you’re looking for more discount types then you’ll have to check out the plugins that’ll let you do so.

Here’s a list of the 10 best dynamic pricing plugins and their features to help you identify the right fit for your needs.

3. Use the Coupon codes plugin to display discounts & deals on your website

Coupon codes have been around for a long time and are a traditional way to promote your online store.

These discounted coupons and deals are often used to push users to make a purchase immediately. And, to add more to the FOMO, you can even set an expiry date for the coupons.

But it’s not as easy as it sounds. 

Sure, you can use the coupon codes to display discounts on your website or through emails to increase your overall sales but ensuring coupon-only access to selected users is a bit of a task.

The coupon code plugins may allow you to generate coupons in bulk, however, showing them only to specific user-roles or groups will have to be done manually. You’ll have to add users or email addresses individually in order to send or assign the discounted coupon codes. 

In doing so, you may end up wasting a lot of time and energy.

Pros & Cons of using coupon codes for discounts

PROS	CONS
1. Setting an expiry date on coupon codes encourages immediate purchase.	1. Time-consuming process, as assigning coupon codes to specific customers, user-roles, or groups has to be done manually.
2. Displaying discount codes on the cart page helps in reducing cart abandonment drastically.	2. Lack of discount types to offer.
3. Ability to schedule coupons as per your needs.	3. Relying time and again on coupon codes can reduce the value of your products and brand.

To know more about the features and different aspects, you can take a look at some of the best coupon code plugins to identify if it suits your requirements.

4. Use Role-based Pricing plugins to assign discounts to particular user-roles

As the name suggests, these plugins allow you to set product pricing for specific user roles in your WooStore.

Besides the pricing, you can even add a percentage discount to the products or product categories. And, assign the discounting rule to a particular customer or user role.

However, the functions of most role-based pricing plugins include:

• Setting minimum and maximum product quantity
• Using fixed or percentage discount
• Assigning the purchase rules to the user-roles of your choice
• Applying the role-based rule to specific products or product categories

Furthermore, role-based plugins are also equipped to efficiently handle price markup and markdown. But, the plugins only offer a simple discount variation and may not allow you to create new user roles.

Pros & Cons of using Role-based pricing plugins for discounts

PROS	CONS
1. Allows you to set pricing & discounting rules according to user-roles.	1. Limited discounting variations or features for user-roles.
2. Lets you apply pricing rules to all products or product categories.	2. Pricing rules and discounts can be applied to user-roles only.

Having said that, if you’re interested in finding out more about role-based plugins, feel free to check out this curated list of Role-based plugins to see if their functions match your requirements.

Wrapping up,

Well, that was our list of the best possible solutions you can use to provide discounts for different groups or user-roles in your WooStore.

And, since discounts are crucial to any business, using them smartly will help you to take your business to new heights.

If you ask us, we suggest you consider a dynamic pricing plugin to get the job done, for obvious reasons. These plugins will let you create pricing and discount rules for specific customers, user-roles, groups, etc. without any coding.

Need more advice for finding the right solution? Feel free to let us know in the comments below, we’ll be happy to help! 🙂

• eCommerce, WooCommerce