The scope defines which products in the cart the discount reaches. It is the Products step of the wizard, and it also decides where the discount is communicated in the store.
Step by step
- In the side menu, go to Catalog → Discounts and open the discount (or click New discount).
- Go to the Products step.
- Pick one of the five scope types: - Whole cart - Specific products - Categories - Price list - Combo / bundle
- If you did not pick Whole cart, load the selection with Add products or Add categories.
- If you want, add Exclusions and the Stock filter.
- Continue to Review and click Save.
The five scope types
| Scope | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Whole cart | Any product in the order. The simplest one. |
| Specific products | A hand-picked selection of items and/or variants. |
| Categories | One or more categories; their subcategories are included automatically. |
| Price list | The products that belong to certain price lists. |
| Combo / bundle | Groups of products for building bundles. See Promotions. |
Variants are not a separate type. You pick them inside Specific products: in the search box, each product can be expanded so you choose Whole product or only some of its variants. That is how you do "20% off only on size XL".
How to put a discount on a product or on a category
These are the two most frequent questions, and both are solved here:
- On certain products: scope Specific products → Add products → search and select. You can select every result of a search at once, and filter by category or by stock inside the search box.
- On a whole category: scope Categories → Add categories. Subcategories come along on their own.
You can also do it from the product: open it in Catalog → Products and go to its Discounts tab. There you see which discounts it takes part in and which ones it is excluded from, with its final price, and you get two shortcuts: Add to an existing discount, and Create discount to build a new one aimed at that product on the spot.
Exclusions
On any scope, Whole cart included, you can Exclude products and Exclude categories. What you exclude does not get the benefit. Example: "20% off across the store, except the Imported category".
Category exclusions also drag along their subcategories.
You cannot exclude "whatever is already on sale". Exclusions work by product, variant or category: there is no condition of the sort "the ones that already have another discount". If what you want is to keep two promotions from overlapping, that is solved with stacking or with Incompatible with. See Stacking, priority and limits.
Stock filter
With Filter by stock the discount applies only to products according to their warehouse stock. The typical case is a clearance: "50% off on products with 5 units or fewer". You pick Max stock or Min stock and the value.
Products with no stock loaded are left out. If a product has no stock loaded, the filter silently drops it. A clearance run over a catalog with no stock loaded discounts $0 and gives no warning.
When the scope has several products
If the effect is Percent off, Fixed amount off or Fixed price, the control When the cart has several products, which ones get it? appears with three options:
- All of them equally: every product in scope gets the discount. With a percentage, each one gets the percentage; with a fixed amount, the amount is spread proportionally. This is the most common choice.
- Only the cheapest: the discount lands solely on the cheapest line. That is the whole line with all its quantity, not a single unit.
- Only the most expensive: the same, on the highest-priced line.
This control does not appear for NxM, Cross-sell, Shipping discount or Combo price: those effects decide on their own where the benefit lands.
Price-list scope ≠ price-list audience
This is the most common confusion in the whole section, and they are two different things:
- Scope "Price list" filters which products enter the discount: the ones belonging to that list.
- Audience "Price lists" filters which customers it applies to: the ones who have that list assigned.
If what you want is "a different discount for each price list", what you are looking for is the audience, not the scope. Create one rule per list and, on the Audience step, under Price lists, choose Only these and tick the list. See Who it applies to.
How it combines with the condition
The scope also defines what gets counted by a quantity or amount condition. With scope "Drinks category" and condition "12 units", the units of Drinks in the cart are counted, not the rest. You adjust that with Where is the minimum counted?, explained in Volume discounts.
If you cannot find it
- You cannot find where to put the discount on certain products. It is on the Products step of the wizard, option Specific products. Another route: the Discounts tab inside each product, in Catalog → Products.
- You cannot find where to set the category. Same step, option Categories, button Add categories.
- You cannot find how to pick a single variant. There is no "variants" scope type: they live inside Specific products, by expanding each product in the search box.
- The discount is set up correctly and does not show on the product page. The scope decides where it is communicated. A Whole cart scope shows in the cart, not on the product. See What your customer sees.
- The stock clearance discounts nothing. It is almost always stock that was never loaded: those products fall outside the filter.
- You do not see "Discounts" in the menu. Sellers do not manage discounts. See Introduction.
Examples
- Clearance: scope Whole cart + Filter by stock ≤ 5 + Percent off 50%.
- Seasonal on certain items: scope Specific products + Date range schedule + Percent off 15%.
- A whole category on sale: scope Categories + Percent off.
- A single variant: scope Specific products, expand the product and tick size XL + Percent off 20%.
- A category minus one brand: scope Categories = Footwear, Exclude categories = "Premium Brand".