Mark down a product without a code

Targeting without maintaining a list

A markdown can point at a single product or variant when that is what you mean. Most of the time you want something broader, and typing product names into a list is how a promotion goes stale the week after you launch it.

Product type, vendor and tag all work as targets, and they keep working as the catalogue changes. Tag ten products and the discount covers ten. Tag a new arrival next week and it is covered on the next publish, with nothing to edit.

The code you never have to honour later

Automatic discounts have an underrated property: they end when you say they end. A code lives on in screenshots, browser extensions and forum posts, and support ends up honouring it months later because arguing costs more than the discount.

Nothing here generates a code. The markdown applies when a matching item is in the cart, during the window you set, and stops when the window closes.

Treating subscriptions differently from one time orders

The same product sold two ways is really two offers. A markdown can apply to one time purchases only, subscriptions only, or both, and pricing them differently is how you make the subscription the obvious choice at the moment someone is deciding.

You can also pin the discount to a single selling plan. That is the difference between rewarding anyone who subscribes and rewarding the shopper who takes the monthly plan rather than the annual one.

To ask a one time buyer to switch in the first place, rather than discounting those who already have, see subscription upsell.

Deciding what it stacks with

Shopify applies one automatic product discount unless every discount involved agrees to combine. That default catches people out: two offers that look independent quietly become one, and shoppers receive the wrong thing.

Every offer declares whether it combines with other product discounts, with order discounts, and with shipping discounts. If you run more than one promotion at a time, this is the setting to check first.

Try it where nobody can see it

A markdown is the offer type where a mistake is most expensive, because it needs no shopper action to start giving money away. Set it to preview and it runs on a draft theme where only you can see it, with no discount registered against your store at all.

Nothing reaches a real shopper until you publish, and edits after that stay in draft until you publish again.

When a gift would work better

A markdown is the right tool for clearing stock, matching a competitor's price, or running a seasonal sale where being cheaper is the point. It is the wrong tool for raising average order value, because taking twenty percent off does not give anyone a reason to add another item.

For that, a free gift or a reward ladder costs less per order and does not teach your customers to wait for the next sale.