A Home Decor Store Decreases Support Tickets by Explaining Coupon Logic

The festive season is considered to be a major shopping season for home decor retailers. Customers are actively on the lookout for gift items, accessories, as well as easy solutions to decorate the house for festivities and even the New Year. To reach such customers, retailers heavily depend on discounts, which range from category discounts to discount codes that come with minimum order requirements.

For one e-home decor store running on Magento 2, though, the festive campaign season introduced a problem that never came with smooth conversions during regular periods — unclear coupon redemption behavior that generated confusions for customers, resulting in a surge in support tickets. Customers were puzzled by the failure of their discount codes, with support reps spending hours resolving issues that could have been prevented.

Background

It is a specialty retailer that focuses on high-end home decor, such as wall decorations, lighting, homemade ceramics, and textiles. Such products are sought after particularly during holidays, when customers look for ideal gift items or decorations for the end-of-year festivities.

To take advantage of this high-intent season, the marketing team introduced layered holiday promotions aimed at encouraging increased average order value as a way of influencing customer behavior. Every promotion came with a set of conditions, such as:

• including products from particular seasonal collections
• meeting a minimum cart total requirement to redeem the discount
• involving at least one product from the “New Arrivals” section
• excluding clearance or oversized items because of shipping limitations

In terms of campaign, the logic is sound. The offers were strategically created to balance price, logistics, and demand during the holidays. The issue is how this set of rules is conveyed to the customers.

In Magento 2, a common error message appeared when shoppers failed to satisfy all conditions stated in a promo coupon. This message did not communicate which conditions were violated, making it hard for customers to know how to proceed with purchases on festive shopping days.

Even small points of confusion generated support tickets. On the busiest days of the season, support queues were doubled because customers were unsure why a coupon might not apply.

The Problem

As the season went by, the reasons that contributed to many support requests were identified to be three.

• Coupons used on excluded products: for most holiday deals, fragile or large decorative items were not allowed because of shipping costs. Magento 2 did not convey the constraint; therefore, customers thought that the coupon had failed.
• Minimum Subtotal Confusion: certain seasonal deals had a minimum spend requirement of $150 or $200. Customers who were a handful of dollars shy from meeting that requirement saw the same generic error screen. Customers abandoned their carts rather than buying one more item.
• Product & collection mismatches: since the coupons were exclusive to particular holiday compilations, customers lacked visibility into what exactly the products were that the coupons would be redeemable for.

The support agents were busy with problems that could have been resolved with clearer messages.

Solution: Easy coupon returns

In order to address the problem, which escalated with the onset of the season, the store installed the Coupon Error Message module.

1. The aim was simple: replacing generic error messages from coupons with understandable messages that customers could read and comprehend instantly.
2. The team set up personalized messages for every rule of promotion. In contrast to a vague message, customers received particular directions, including:
• “This coupon is only redeemable for the Spring Living collection.”
• "Your cart must total at least $150 to use this code."
• “Clearance items are not eligible for this holiday promotion.”

Instead of presenting customers with the failure of only the first condition, the store displayed all the conditions that have not been met. Customers were able to address all the issues in a single step.

Impact

1. The number of support tickets received decreased substantially

In the initial month, there was a significant drop-off in enquiries related to coupons. Customers required less assistance because of the clear feedback mechanism in the shopping cart and check-out. This happened during the peak season.

2. Holiday marketing activity exceeded previous standards

The marketing department felt assured that consumers were taking advantage of the promotion as desired. Even complicated offers during holidays did not confuse consumers anymore.

3. Enhancing cart recovery

Instead of customers leaving shopping carts abandoned, they made small changes and proceeded with the shopping. Hesitant customers were directed on what to do.

4. More confident customers

Customer responses revealed appreciation for the transparency expressed in messages. Customers felt that the shopping process was helpful, which is commensurate with the service standards they demanded from a high-end home decor brand.

Conclusion

This particular retailer did not have a promotion problem, but a communication problem.

The problem with Magento 2’s original error message, “Coupon code is invalid,” is that it made professional-looking Christmas promotions look broken. This forced the support team to handle unnecessary tasks. The store solved this problem with the implementation of the Mageside extension Coupon Error Message, ensuring that customers received human-friendly messages when dealing with coupons.

This led to fewer requests for support, improved performance during the holiday campaign, and a better overall shopping experience.

In particular, during the holidays, it is a matter of diligence. Customers who clearly comprehend what is necessary continue shopping, as opposed to forgoing purchases or seeking assistance.