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Comment by mijustin | Hacker News Reader

This PayPal/Comscore study found that 27% of potential buyers abandoned their shopping cart because they had to go look for a coupon code.

Another study found that removing the promo code box improved conversion from 3.8% to 5.1%

Source: http://ux.stackexchange.com/a/11365

(There's also some good shopping cart / checkout UX tips in there too)

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I've abandoned a couple purchases because of that coupon code box. I go search for one and realize that they do regular promotions so I wait for one, usually to never come back and make a purchase.

I’ve done the same - though in at least one case I did purchase eventually when I caught the promotion.

However that was still reduced and delayed revenue for the vendor over not having the box. And how many times have I completely given up… Lots.

I'd say that a coupon code box runs a distant third behind surprise high shipping rates and sites I've never heard of that don't accept third-party payment sites and instead want my credit card info. Nope.

Technically speaking, a credit card is a third-party payment system ;)

But, I still get your point. Ridiculous shipping charges has definitely led to me abandoning a cart more often then coupon code boxes. Although, I still prefer it when sites just tell me what the shipping is before I put the item in my cart. Not telling me before I have to fill in anything more than a zip code tends to be a sign of high shipping charges and sometimes leads to me going to a competitors website without even checking what it will cost to ship.

I've abandoned purchases as well. When I know I might be missing out on a coupon, I go hunt for it. Most of the time I don't find the coupon I'm looking for, but I do stumble across (coupons for) other products, which might offer a better deal. I end up purchasing those, or not purchasing anything anymore.

Instinctively I agree with the author: when a customer has effectively made a purchase decision, a webshop shouldn't divert him to random pages on the internet, unless there is a mechanism in place that leads to extra sales. Showing a coupon box during one of the final phases of the purchasing process is a way of diverting customers to random pages on the internet.

I've done the same. The coupon code box screams, "You're a sucker if you don't have a code to put in here."

I go searching for a code. I find a few great ones that have expired but nothing active right now. Now I can continue my purchase and feel like a chump or abandon my cart. The latter usually wins.

Another problem with coupon codes is they allow for affiliate commission stealing. Say someone visits a site via an affiliate URL and they are about to checkout when they notice the coupon code field. They Google coupon codes and find a site that says you have to use their URL (as many do). Now the coupon code site gets credit for the referral. On the surface this doesn't seem like a big problem but it is very common.

The worst I've had was the following:

- Go to buy a product, get all the way up to the checkout and abandon for an unrelated reason - Go back and purchase the product at full price - Get an email with a discount code for abandoning my cart the first time

Left a very unpleasant feeling of being stooged. If I'd only known to abandon my cart first...

"This PayPal/Comscore study found that 27% of potential buyers abandoned their shopping cart because they had to go look for a coupon code.

Another study found that removing the promo code box improved conversion from 3.8% to 5.1%"

Didn't read the study but I wonder if those numbers take into account the positive benefit of using the coupon box.

In other words you do a promotion offering a discount to increase sales. The result of the promotion is an increase of x but also a decrease of y because of abandonment. It seems (by the way you phrase the summary) that the study only concluded the negative aspect and not the upside to the coupon code. (Once again I didn't read the study so I am just asking.)

This is just one example. The problem is that different sites / products attract different types of persons. In our ecommerce site, we noticed almost no difference in conversions.

We use coupon codes to track our marketing efforts.

Could the coupon box "train" customers to jump on deals when offered? Perhaps that is the seller's hope, and that it is about a relationship and revenue stream into the future.

(I'm not saying this "training" is a net win for the seller, but I can see "loyalty" as one of their goals.)

At my company we've tested having the coupon box automatically filled in vs. not automatically filled in and we found that conversions were no higher by automatically filling it in.

And if you want to be focused purely on the bottom line; conversions were just as high without it automatically filled in but coupon usage was notably lower; meaning automatically filling in the coupon was just giving away money.

I suspect that people don't trust a merchant-supplied coupon.

A also suspect this is why when you Google "landsend coupons" the #1 site is a UGC coupon-sharing site and #2 is the merchant's own site. By every traditional measure, the merchant's page should outrank the coupon site.

Why would you trust a coupon sharing site more? The merchant has an incentive to only give you some token discount, whereas the "crowd" has no such incentive. So you're more likely to trust the crowd in this scenario.

I guess it depends on whether the coupon is thought of as an incentive to buy or a cheat code.

"cheat code" is a perfect way of describing it... I think that's definitely part of the ethos of couponing. It's retail hacking for many.

"At my company we've tested having the coupon box automatically filled in vs. not automatically filled in and we found that conversions were no higher by automatically filling it in."

What are you filling it in with and what type of discount did the coupon apply to the purchase?

So are you saying that for the purposes of testing you took a loss on the sale in order to see if there was abandonment?

Some places like Newegg put the promo code on the item page itself, so it's basically like giving it to everyone who buys the item. In this case, there's no loss on the sale.

They were substantial coupons and they were available to every customer, and posted prominently on the site and even in the cart.

We did not take any losses.

That's not the same as looking at having the coupon code versus not having it.

The parent wasn't claiming this; they were merely adding a single data point about a relevant topic! I for one had not thought about pre-filling the coupon code box before, and I'm glad the parent brought it to my attention.

The grandparent tested the idea, that showing a coupon which is already filled and active, will carry an illusion of a bargain and hence the customer will be more likely to convert.

One guy doing a split-test on one client -- the second one you cite -- is not what I would call "a study": http://www.conversiondoctor.com/conversion-blog/coupon-codes...

Look at other reasons people abandoned carts in that PayPal/Comscore study:

Wanted to comparison shop: 37%

Lack of money: 36%

Wanted to look for a coupon: 27%

Wanted to shop offline: 26%

Couldn’t find preferred pay option: 24%

Item unavailable at checkout: 23%

Couldn’t find customer support: 22%

Security concerns: 21%

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Sad-Tale-of-Abandoned-Shopp...

When you look at the big picture findings from this survey, it makes you realize: 20-40% of people will abandon a cart for ANY reason.

And none of these "studies" have looked into what the conversion rates for people who DO use coupons are. When you introduce a coupon to a good customer, or at the right moment, does that INCREASE conversions? I'd would bet good money the answer is yes. And I would bet you money that that increase outweighs the seemingly random "25% of people quit a cart for every possible reason."

There is no such thing as a one-sided effect.

BTW -- abandoning a cart is not the same thing as quitting a checkout in progress. Beginning the checkout process is a much bigger indicator of intention than putting stuff in your cart. Many people just put stuff in their cart as a kind of shopping list, or "I might want to look at this more later." Which is no doubt why cart abandonment rates are so high.

I agree; those studies aren't great.

I wrote the post from an anecdotal POV, and just started digging into the research once the discussion came up here. ;)

On further inspection, here is some research that might support my point:

- Oliver & Shor found that: "prompting for a code in the absence of having one had negative effects on fairness, satisfaction, and completion when compared to the control." http://www2.owen.vanderbilt.edu/mike.shor/research/promo/jpb...

- This study by Oliver & Swan (1989) found a big link between a consumer's perception of pricing fairness, and their overall satisfaction with a purchase. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1251411?uid=3737720&ui...

- Xia, Monroe, & Cox found: "For price comparisons, the other-customer comparison has the greatest effect on perceived price unfairness because of the salience of such a comparison" http://bear.warrington.ufl.edu/weitz/mar7786/Articles/price%...

- This study by Google found that in a real-world setting, "that more than 40% of shoppers have left a retail store without purchasing because they knew they left a coupon at home". http://www.google.com/think/research-studies/from-clipping-t...

I abandoned a merchant, not just my shopping cart because of that.

advanceautoparts or something. was buying from them, got to the checkout, searched for coupons, found that they have 25%+ coupons going on year around.

I can't possibly buy from a site that has all it's prices upmarked by at least 25% to begin with.

>I can't possibly buy from a site that has all it's prices upmarked by at least 25% to begin with.

I guess you don't buy much, then.

yep.

Well, that's because they are primarily a retail operation. They want to have different prices for online shoppers versus retail shoppers.

I find it handy, because I can place an order online and pick it up at the store. But I usually get 20% off. Hmm...

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