Once per Customer Promotion

I'm hoping a CS Cart mod will jump in on this one:



How does the “once per customer” option work in the promotions?



Does it prevent re-use of the promotion by the user's login details? If so what details, just the username or shipping billing address, too?



Or does it limit the use by IP address?



The reason that I want to know is, I'd like to be able to anticipate how many users will be able to game the system by using a proxy ip or creating new logins to receive the promotion multiple times.



If I was an evil hacker and saw a “use only once” coupon, I would try both methods. (Of course, I'm NOT an evil hacker…)

Dear Evil Hacker,


  1. Users have an ID within cs-cart. It's probably using this. I don't know how it will work with guests, but i'm guessing it uses email address.



    It won't limit per IP address for sure. Many people have always changing IP addresses because of their ISP.



    I wouldn't worry about it too much actually…






[quote name='plinkplink' timestamp='1330098810' post='131979']

I'm hoping a CS Cart mod will jump in on this one:



How does the “once per customer” option work in the promotions?



Does it prevent re-use of the promotion by the user's login details? If so what details, just the username or shipping billing address, too?



Or does it limit the use by IP address?



The reason that I want to know is, I'd like to be able to anticipate how many users will be able to game the system by using a proxy ip or creating new logins to receive the promotion multiple times.



If I was an evil hacker and saw a “use only once” coupon, I would try both methods. (Of course, I'm NOT an evil hacker…)

[/quote]

Good point about the IPs. There are office buildings with hundreds of users on the same IP, now that I think about it.



Email address is pretty solid, but anyone could make a new email account with hotmail every time they order. Maybe it's smart enough to catch shipping addresses, too?



I'll just have to keep an eye on the promotion and see if I can manually catch anyone at it…

I think… if someone really wants to rip you if this way, they'll find a way (ship to family, friend, use other email address, etc)… so best is not to worry about it. It might happens every once in a while, but most people won't bother going through the trouble.



If you're really that afriad they will, maybe your offer is too good ?

Oh, I agree.



Would you mind calling my boss and reassure him, in soothing tones, that everything is going to be OK?



The promotion is not that great. But I have to convince the senior executive oligarchy that the Internet is not comprised entirely of post-apocalyptic cyber warriors standing ready to bring their company to its knees at a keystroke.

at least its a sale, just dont give too much discount. We discussed the same thing a while back about people giving the code to there friends but then thought well, its an extra new customer after all.



John

True. If it were up to me I'd have free shipping on everything and go promo-crazy. But it's not my money. I have to hard-sell every promotion to the executives and God help me if I don't do my research first.



Maybe I should make my own store. Now if i only had something to sell…

Oh, and John, speaking of promotions, I've got one running on my product designer stuff. 15% off My Binders.



Check out the funnel I built trying to get people from 0 awareness to purchase: [url=“Best Binders for Office Storage & Organization | UniKeep®”]http://www.unikeep.com/my-binder.html[/url]



Increased conversion by about 8% so far. Which is pretty good for something that requires so much work on the users' part.

I like it, I am trying to come up with something similar to get them to realise we are not gonna just send them a pile of crap once they part with their cash. We get dozens everyday calling to do it via telephone. I have thought of putting up what “Joe bloggs sent us” and then what we created from that etc etc"

We send proofs of every order to customer for approval before printing, but puttin this across is not so easy.

Yours is good, I reckon 8% will grow



John

I tend to be careful with all these coupons and free shipping stuff. Some shops totally overdo it, and I can't take them seriously anymore. Also it makes me not buy from them unless I get something with at least 40% off.

[quote name='johnbol1' timestamp='1330154901' post='132054']

I like it, I am trying to come up with something similar to get them to realise we are not gonna just send them a pile of crap once they part with their cash. We get dozens everyday calling to do it via telephone. I have thought of putting up what “Joe bloggs sent us” and then what we created from that etc etc"

We send proofs of every order to customer for approval before printing, but puttin this across is not so easy.

Yours is good, I reckon 8% will grow



John

[/quote]



Good call.



I'll have some customer designs printed out so that I can photograph them and make a little gallery on that step one page. Since it is such a hard conversion, it always is anytime there's work involved on the user-side, I think putting the idea of what they'll get into their minds as early as possible will generate a bit more momentum.



A picture of a person showing off their very own creation to admiring friends would be even better. I know it's corny, but good internet marketing is all about answering the only question users really ever have, “What's in it for me?” Literally showing them payoff for going through this funnel might be really powerful. Focusing on benefits rather than features, you know?



I wish I had dozens calling every day for this! I think I'll get there, but it's a ways off, yet. Just launched less than a month ago…

[quote name='Flow' timestamp='1330167243' post='132064']

I tend to be careful with all these coupons and free shipping stuff. Some shops totally overdo it, and I can't take them seriously anymore. Also it makes me not buy from them unless I get something with at least 40% off.

[/quote]



True. The psychology of the promotion is a vast and uncertain science. This promo that I want to run is targeted to move current customers from the old site to the new one.



I was hired on to clean up this trainwreck: www.univenture.com



And I made it into this: www.unikeep.com



Management felt that a sudden change from the old site design to the new would “lose us revenue” somehow. So I've got to migrate customers from the old busted site to the new pretty one. I thought a good place to start was a standing offer of 15% off your first/next purchase; one-time use.



You see, I feel that everyday that old website is online is hurting the company's brand image. It's really just an eyesore and the customers' perception is that of a rummage sale or a company that looks like it's going out of business.



As soon as my new site is making significantly more money than the old one, I'll have the go-ahead to pull the plug on the old shopping cart and re-purpose the old URL for something else.

[quote name='plinkplink' timestamp='1330186200' post='132078']



Management felt that a sudden change from the old site design to the new would “lose us revenue” somehow. So I've got to migrate customers from the old busted site to the new pretty one. I thought a good place to start was a standing offer of 15% off your first/next purchase; one-time use.



[/quote]



We done the same 3 years ago and found the opposite, we found our regular account customers visited more pages on the new layout due to humans inquisitive nature, We got comments like "oh we didnt know you sold “x” product we just thought you were all about “y”. So then we recieved more sales of the products they didnt realise we even did cos they used to get in get what they had last time and get out. Seeing the new layout made them have a browse.

That said we do have quite a number of regular account customers.



John

Nice redesign job! Don't they want to keep the old domain though for seo purposes?

[quote name='johnbol1' timestamp='1330188197' post='132079']

We done the same 3 years ago and found the opposite, we found our regular account customers visited more pages on the new layout due to humans inquisitive nature, We got comments like "oh we didnt know you sold “x” product we just thought you were all about “y”. So then we recieved more sales of the products they didnt realise we even did cos they used to get in get what they had last time and get out. Seeing the new layout made them have a browse.

That said we do have quite a number of regular account customers.



John

[/quote]



Nice! I'd love to do that, too. Seems to make a lot of sense to me… Unfortunately, the powers that be are not easily convinced by anything short of real numbers, after the fact.



Me: Trust me!



Boss: No.

[quote name='Flow' timestamp='1330201572' post='132085']

Nice redesign job! Don't they want to keep the old domain though for seo purposes?

[/quote]



Thanks!



Yeah, we're keeping the old URL for SEO, but it's got to have a redesign for sure. Running two carts that sell the same thing may or may not be a good idea. What do you think? Some customers might prefer a crappy-looking website; makes them feel like they're getting a deal. While others might prefer a more professional looking site.



Maybe keeping both is a good idea?



???

Well, I would redirect the old URLS to the new one so you keep your ranking and can focus on running one shop. But that’s me :)