Loyalty Discount

When a customer comes back to buy something they’ve already purchased from you, that’s worth celebrating — and rewarding. The loyalty discount is an automatic percentage discount that applies at checkout when a customer re-purchases a product they’ve bought before. No coupon codes, no hunting for deals, no friction. The discount just appears in their cart.

This is completely separate from the points system. Points are about earning and redeeming currency. The loyalty discount is a straightforward “you’ve bought this before — here’s a thank you” applied directly to the price.

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Why It Matters

Repeat purchases are the lifeblood of a healthy store. A customer who buys the same product twice is far more likely to buy a third time than a one-time buyer is to buy a second time. The loyalty discount puts a small, visible reward in front of repeat buyers right at the moment it matters most — when they’re about to check out.

It’s especially powerful for:

• Consumables — coffee, skincare, supplements, cleaning products — anything people run out of and need to reorder
• Subscriptions-like behaviour — customers who naturally reorder on a cycle, without you having to set up a full subscription system
• Bulk reordering — encouraging customers who bought a sample to come back for the full size

The product page shows a badge (“You’ve bought this before — X% off”) so customers know the discount is waiting before they even add to cart. That’s a compelling nudge.

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The Priority System

This is the most important thing to understand about the loyalty discount: the most specific setting wins.

You can set a loyalty discount at three different levels — product, category, and tier. When a customer re-purchases something, Perkie checks in this order and uses the first match it finds:

1. Product level — a discount set directly on that specific product
2. Category level — a discount set on the product’s category
3. Tier level — the default discount from the customer’s current tier

Think of it like a waterfall. Product-level is the most specific, so it takes priority over everything. If there’s no product-level discount, it checks the category. If there’s no category discount either, it falls back to whatever the customer’s tier has set.

This lets you be flexible. Set a general “10% for Gold tier customers” as your baseline, then override it for specific categories (“15% off skincare for repeat buyers”) or individual products (“20% off our bestselling coffee blend — we really want people to keep coming back for this one”).

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The Steps

Setting a Discount on a Specific Product

This gives one product its own loyalty discount, overriding any category or tier default.

1. In your WordPress admin sidebar, go to WooCommerce > Products
2. Find the product you want to set a discount on and click Edit
3. Scroll down to the Product Data section and click the General tab
4. Find the Loyalty Discount field and enter a percentage (e.g., 15 for 15% off)
5. Click Update to save the product

That’s all. Any customer who has previously purchased this product will now see the discount badge on the product page and the discount applied in their cart on their next purchase.

Setting a Discount on a Category

A category-level discount applies to all products in that category, for any customer who has previously bought a product from it. This is handy for product ranges where repeat purchasing makes sense across the whole line.

1. In your WordPress admin sidebar, go to WooCommerce > Products > Categories
2. Find the category you want to edit and click Edit
3. Scroll down to find the Loyalty Discount field and enter a percentage
4. Click Update to save the category

Remember: if a product in this category has its own product-level discount set, that product-level setting wins. The category discount only applies when there’s no product-level override.

Setting a Default Discount per Tier

Tier-level discounts are your fallback — the discount customers get when no product or category setting applies. This is where you set your programme’s baseline.

1. Go to Tracksies > Perkie > Tiers
2. Click Edit next to the tier you want to configure
3. Enter a percentage in the Loyalty Discount % field
4. Click Save Tier

You can set different rates for different tiers. For example: Bronze gets 0% (no loyalty discount), Silver gets 5%, Gold gets 10%, VIP gets 15%. Your best customers get the best repeat-purchase reward — automatically, without any manual work.

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How It Works for the Customer

Here’s the experience from the customer’s side:

1. A customer buys Product A from your store
2. They come back later and visit the Product A page
3. They see a badge on the product: “You’ve bought this before — X% off”
4. They add it to their cart
5. At checkout, a discount line item appears: “Loyalty discount: −$X.XX”
6. They check out with the discounted total, no code required

The discount is applied automatically and transparently. Customers know exactly why they’re getting a discount, which reinforces the message: shopping with you again pays off.

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Common Questions

Does the loyalty discount apply to product variations?
The system checks whether the customer has previously purchased the same product — not necessarily the same variation. So if a customer bought the red version of a t-shirt and comes back for the blue version, the loyalty discount applies. The discount is tied to the parent product, not a specific variation.

What if I don’t want the discount to apply across variations?
Currently, variation-level loyalty discounts aren’t supported — the match is at the parent product level. If you have variations that are genuinely different products and you don’t want the cross-variation discount, the workaround is to set them up as separate products rather than variations of a single product.

Can a customer get both a loyalty discount and a points multiplier?
Yes. These are two completely separate systems. The loyalty discount reduces the cart total, while points are earned on the purchase. The points multiplier still applies based on the customer’s tier. They’re not mutually exclusive.

What if a customer has a coupon code on top of the loyalty discount?
WooCommerce applies discounts in the order it processes them. The loyalty discount is an automatic cart discount — it stacks with coupon codes unless you specifically configure WooCommerce to prevent coupon stacking (a WooCommerce-level setting on the coupon itself).

Can I set a loyalty discount to 0% to explicitly exclude a product?
Yes. Setting a product’s loyalty discount to 0% means that product gets no loyalty discount, even if the customer’s tier or the product’s category would otherwise provide one. Use this when you have a specific product you never want discounted on repeat purchase (sale items, bundles, etc.).

Is there a minimum number of previous purchases required?
No. One previous purchase is enough to unlock the loyalty discount on the next purchase. The system just needs to see that the customer has an order containing that product in their history.

Does the badge show on the product page for all customers, or only those who’ve bought before?
Only customers who have previously purchased that product see the badge. Everyone else sees the product page as normal. There’s no awkward “0% off” badge for new buyers — it simply doesn’t appear.

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Related Guides

• Setting Up Tiers — configure your tier structure and set the tier-level loyalty discount defaults