Social commerce promotions

Set the offer’s purpose and terms before posting. Check the customer-facing message against the product page and checkout.

Choose the promotion’s job

Decide whether the offer is meant to introduce a product, encourage a first purchase, move a seasonal range or support a live demonstration. Choose the product and measure that fit that purpose. A broad discount across unrelated items can make the result harder to interpret.

Decide how the benefit will appear. On Shopify, a discount code is entered at checkout; sale pricing shown through a compare-at price is a separate mechanism. A shopper may therefore see the ordinary product price before a code is applied. Describe the saving as it appears in the retailer’s actual setup.

Define the offer and its claim

Record the qualifying products and variants, benefit, start and end, eligibility, minimum spend, exclusions, and whether the offer combines with other discounts. Include relevant delivery and stock conditions. Put any condition that changes the main customer-facing claim beside that claim.

The ACCC can require businesses to back up claims made on social media, and may investigate or take compliance or enforcement action. If exclusions apply, name the qualifying range instead of calling the offer “storewide”.

Configure the discount before publishing

For a Shopify discount code, set its valid dates, maximum number of uses, minimum order amount, eligible products, collections or variants, and combination settings. A code can be sent by email or displayed in the online store; customers enter it during checkout to receive the discount.

Shopify uses the time zone selected in the store admin for discount dates. A code set to start on a chosen date begins at midnight in that time zone. Check the configured zone against the promotion schedule before publishing. The discount type cannot be changed after the discount has been created.

Check and maintain the buying route

Compare the finished post with its shopping action, product page, cart and order review. Check the exact variant, inclusions, price, discount and delivery terms for the intended Australian customer. A review that stops before payment cannot confirm a completed order.

In some cases, Shopify applies the best discount or combination to the cart when active automatic discounts and one or more codes are used. Test the intended cart to confirm the amount shown matches the offer; see “Check discount combination eligibility” below. Review other checkout systems separately.

Give someone responsibility for the public post, the underlying offer and stock changes. Recheck an active promotion after a price edit, unavailable variant, changed delivery promise or expiry. Correct or pause an inaccurate claim where the channel permits it. Updating a store price does not necessarily update an older caption or a statement made during a live stream.

Check how customers can redeem the offer

Shopify discounts can be applied automatically or when a customer enters a code in the cart or at checkout. Customers can redeem codes online and in person when the retailer uses Shopify POS. If a code is included in a checkout URL, avoid special characters in its name so it is added correctly.

A maximum-use setting can limit a code’s total uses, limit it to one use per customer, or do both. The one-use-per-customer restriction applies to that specific discount: deleting it and creating a duplicate with the same restriction can allow previous users to use the new code once. Account for that behaviour when replacing a live code.

Check discount combination eligibility

Shopify groups discounts into product, order and shipping classes. All merchants can combine order discounts with free-shipping discounts, product discounts with free-shipping discounts, and product discounts on separate items. Combining product discounts with order discounts, or multiple order discounts, is available only to eligible merchants. Product discounts on the same item can be combined only on Shopify Plus.

If a customer enters codes that cannot combine, Shopify displays a message that the discount could not be used with the existing discounts. For cart testing, see “Check and maintain the buying route” above.

Account for code-use limits at checkout

A checkout that has not become a completed order can still affect code availability. Shopify may mark a code as already used when an unfinished checkout is holding it; after an order is submitted, the code remains against its usage limit until payment completes or fails. Treat an unexpected rejection as a route issue to investigate, not proof that the customer has already completed a purchase.

Review the result

Compare the result with the measure chosen for the promotion. To assess its commercial contribution, consider revenue after discounts alongside relevant costs. These include the cost of the products sold, fulfilment, and promotion-related advertising or platform spend. Use a consistent period and comparison basis. Treat discount-code use as an activity measure, not proof that social content caused a sale.

Key compliance and performance metrics for social promotions

Use reports and escalation appropriately

Shopify’s Sales by discount report can show how often discount codes are used. Use it as a view of code activity alongside the promotion’s other measures.

The ACCC accepts reports about possible misleading claims and uses them to inform education, compliance and enforcement work. It does not resolve individual disputes or provide legal advice, so a report is not a substitute for handling a customer’s individual issue.