Discount Types
Grocery and retail operators manage three types of commercial actions simultaneously — and each requires a different mechanic:
| Offer type | Who it targets | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Mass promotions | All customers — enrolled or not | Automatic at checkout, no code needed. Weekly leaflet, store-opening offer, cart threshold. |
| Club prices | Loyalty members only | Automatic for enrolled customers. Member price vs non-member price. Category multipliers. |
| Personalized offers | A specific audience segment | Delivered via a unique voucher per customer. Win-back, high-value, lapsed segment campaigns. |
Loyal Guru's promotional engine is designed to run all three simultaneously, evaluated in real time at checkout, with a single interface for creating and managing every campaign type.
Five effect mechanics cover the full range of retail promotional formats. All can be combined with product scope, customer conditions, and stackability rules — giving operators hundreds of possible campaign configurations without custom development.
Choosing the right mechanic drives the commercial outcome: a percentage drives perceived value, a BOGO drives volume on FMCG, a combo price protects margin while promoting categories.
| Type | Commercial use case | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage Off | Broad category or member pricing | 30% off all T-Shirts for loyalty members |
| Fixed Amount Off | Cart threshold reward or product-specific rebate | €10 off specific brand jeans; €15 off when cart ≥ €100 |
| BOGO (NxM) | Volume driver — buy N, get M free | Buy 2, Get 1 Free on Coca-Cola |
| Tiered Quantity | Progressive discount on multiple units | Second unit at 50% off |
| Combo Price | Bundle or cross-category promotion at a fixed price | Product A + Product B for €35 |
How It Works
Each discount type maps to a different calculation applied to the eligible line items in the cart:
- Percentage Off — the unit price of each matching item is multiplied by
(1 - rate). - Fixed Amount Off — a flat monetary amount is subtracted from the eligible item total.
- BOGO (NxM) — the lowest-priced qualifying item is made free (or reduced) once the quantity threshold is met.
- Tiered Quantity — the second (and subsequent) qualifying units are priced at the reduced rate.
- Combo Price — when all items in a defined bundle are present in the cart, the bundle is repriced as a whole.
Bundles
A bundle links a set of victory conditions (what must be in the cart) with a set of application conditions (which items receive the effect) to define a group-level promotion. Instead of applying a discount to individual items independently, the engine treats matching items as a group and applies the benefit per group.
Why bundles matter: they enable mechanics that are impossible with simple per-item rules — BOGO, cross-category combos, and volume tiers where the discount applies to the Nth item, not all items.
Think of a bundle as a reusable promotion group:
- Victory conditions build the group — the customer must buy the required items or quantities.
- Application conditions select the benefit — the engine decides which item or item set receives the discount.
- The effect applies once per complete group — if the cart contains enough items for multiple groups, the engine can apply the bundle multiple times unless the Limit of effects caps it.
This separation is what makes scenarios like "buy 2 from category A, get 1 from category B free" possible. The items that qualify the cart and the items that receive the benefit do not have to be the same.
| Mechanic | Victory condition | Application condition |
|---|---|---|
| 2×1 (BOGO) | 2× Product A in cart | 1× Product A at 100% off |
| Buy 2 get 1 free (mixed) | 1× Product A + 1× Product B in cart | 1× Product B at 100% off |
| Combo price | 1× Product A + 1× Product B | The pair repriced to a fixed €35 |
| 3 for the price of 2 | 3× Product A in cart | 1× Product A at 100% off |
Limit of effects controls how many times the bundle group can be applied within a single transaction. For example, limit: 2 on a 2×1 means at most two BOGO groups apply per checkout — so a customer buying 6 units gets 2 free, not 3.
Bundles are available for Percentage, Direct Value, and Combo Price effects on Cart events. See Reading from GET — Bundle mechanics for the full API reference.
Configuration
The discount type is selected in the Effects section of the discount creation form.
| Type | Key fields |
|---|---|
| Percentage Off | Rate (%), eligible product scope |
| Fixed Amount Off | Amount (currency), minimum cart or item condition |
| BOGO (NxM) | Buy N quantity, get M free |
| Tiered Quantity | Buy ≥ N units → subsequent units at X% off |
| Combo Price | Bundle SKUs, fixed bundle price |
For the full creation flow, see Create a Discount Campaign.