WooCommerce coupons were highly flexible — you could set minimum cart values, restrict to specific products or categories, offer percentage or fixed discounts, allow free shipping, and create complex conditional rules with premium plugins like Advanced Coupons or Smart Coupons. Shopify has a built-in discount system that covers most standard use cases, plus a Shopify Functions framework for custom discount logic. This guide covers the discount types available, what migrates automatically, what doesn't, and how to recreate your WooCommerce promotional logic in Shopify.

Shopify discount types

Discount type	How applied	Best for
Percentage discount	% off order, product, or collection	Seasonal sales, category promotions
Fixed amount	£X off order or product	Welcome discount, loyalty rewards
Free shipping	Remove shipping costs	Cart abandonment recovery, minimum order incentive
Buy X get Y (BOGO)	Buy quantity X, get Y free/discounted	Multi-buy promotions, clearance
Spend X get Y (automatic)	Automatic discount at cart threshold	Minimum order incentives

Automatic discounts

Automatic discounts apply without a code — discount applies when conditions are met at checkout:

Shopify admin → Discounts → Create discount → Automatic discount
Examples: "10% off all orders over £50", "Free shipping on orders over £40", "Buy 2 items from Summer Collection, get 3rd free"
Multiple automatic discounts: Shopify applies the best applicable automatic discount (customers receive the most beneficial discount when multiple apply)
Stacking: by default, automatic discounts and discount codes cannot be combined. Shopify Plus can control discount combinations more granularly.
Display in cart: Shopify shows applied automatic discounts in the cart with a "Discount applied" line — clear to customers without needing to enter a code

Discount codes

Customer enters code at checkout: discount applied to order
Bulk code generation: create up to 100,000 unique discount codes at once (for loyalty campaigns, referral programmes)
Usage limits: per-code limit (e.g., single use), per-customer limit, total number of uses
Eligibility: restrict to specific customers, specific customer tags (e.g., newsletter subscribers get the code), or minimum cart value
Product restrictions: apply discount to specific products, collections, or variants only
Combination rules: can a discount code combine with free shipping? With an automatic discount? Configure per code.
Expiry: set start and end date/time — useful for time-limited flash sales

BOGO (Buy X Get Y) promotions

Shopify native BOGO: Discounts → Create discount → Buy X Get Y
Configuration: "Buy 2 of [collection/product], get 1 free (or discounted)"
Free item: Shopify automatically adds the cheapest qualifying product at £0 (or discounted)
Limitations: Shopify's native BOGO is product-based. For complex multi-tier BOGO (buy 2 get 10% off, buy 3 get 20% off, buy 4 get 30% off), use Bold Discounts or Shopify Functions.
Tiered BOGO display: show the discount tiers on the product page ("Buy 2 save 10% · Buy 3 save 20% · Buy 4 save 30%") via a cart tier notification app or theme customization

Free shipping thresholds

Standard approach: automatic free shipping discount for orders over £X
Progressive cart message: "Add £12 more for free shipping" — displayed in cart and mini-cart. Requires theme support or a "free shipping bar" app (most themes include this natively).
Free shipping for specific groups: create a discount code for free shipping, distribute to wholesale customers or loyalty members. Tag-based automatic free shipping: "All customers with vip tag get free shipping" — use automatic discount with customer tag condition.

Flash sales

Timed automatic discount: Create an automatic discount with a specific start and end date/time. When the discount expires, standard pricing resumes — no manual intervention needed.
Countdown timer: Show a countdown to the flash sale end time on the product page and collection page. Several Shopify apps provide this (Countdown Timer Bar, Sales Countdown Timer).
Compare-at price: During a flash sale, set the sale price as the regular price and the normal price as compare-at. Shopify displays "Was £89, Now £59" automatically. Reset compare-at prices when sale ends.
Sale badge: Products with compare-at price higher than price automatically get the "Sale" badge in most Shopify themes.
Bulk price update for flash sale: Use Matrixify (Excelify) or Shopify Bulk Operations API to update prices and compare-at prices across hundreds of products at once for a sitewide flash sale.

Migrating WooCommerce coupons

Simple coupon codes: Recreate directly in Shopify Discounts. Export WooCommerce coupons (WooCommerce → Coupons → Export) and recreate key active codes in Shopify.
Unique per-customer codes: If WooCommerce generated unique codes for each customer (Smart Coupons), generate equivalent bulk unique codes in Shopify and email them to customers post-migration.
Programmatic coupons (loyalty/referral): If your WooCommerce store generated coupons automatically (e.g., Earned X points = get coupon), replicate via a Shopify loyalty app (Smile.io) that generates discount codes programmatically.
Complex conditional coupons: WooCommerce Advanced Coupons allowed AND/OR conditions on product categories, customer history, cart subtotal combinations. In Shopify, replicate via Shopify Functions (Plus) or Bold Discounts app.
What doesn't migrate: WooCommerce coupon usage history doesn't import to Shopify. You can't see which customer used which code historically. Export usage data before decommissioning WooCommerce.

Shopify Plus: Scripts and Functions

Shopify Functions (Plus): Build custom discount logic using Rust or JavaScript. Examples: complex tiered pricing, B2B-specific discounts, cart-level customizations beyond native discount types.
Discount combinations (Plus): Fine-grained control over which discounts combine. Non-Plus stores have limited control over discount stacking.
Checkout UI Extensions with discounts (Plus): Show custom discount messaging and UI at checkout.

Discount migration checklist

Export all active WooCommerce coupon codes before migration
Recreate currently-active discount codes in Shopify with equivalent rules
Set up free shipping automatic discount with appropriate minimum order value
Create BOGO discounts for any buy-X-get-Y promotions
Set up a "Welcome" discount code for new customers (standard 10–15% off first order)
Configure free shipping progress bar in cart ("Add £X for free shipping")
If running loyalty programme: connect to Smile.io or LoyaltyLion for programmatic discount code generation
Test: apply discount code at checkout → verify correct amount deducted
Test: automatic discount triggers at correct cart threshold
Test: BOGO adds free item correctly
Test: discount code + automatic discount combination behaviour

The most common discount migration gap is the "loyalty reward code" from WooCommerce. Many WooCommerce stores using Points and Rewards plugins would automatically generate a coupon code when a customer accumulated enough points — the customer would see "You've earned a £10 reward! Use code REWARD-XXXXXX." This automatic coupon generation cannot be replicated with Shopify's native discount tools alone. Post-migration, you need a Shopify loyalty app (Smile.io is the most common) to replace this functionality. Before migration, export the list of customers with outstanding reward codes from WooCommerce and manually honour them in Shopify — either by creating the equivalent discount codes or issuing Shopify gift card codes of the equivalent value. Failing to honour outstanding rewards is a significant customer satisfaction risk.

Shopify discount & promotions strategy after WooCommerce (2026)