Shopify Discounts vs. Draft Orders: A Complete Guide

Shopify enables two main approaches to provide price discounts to customers through Draft Orders and Discounts. Shopify provides two distinct approaches for special pricing but each offers special advantages appropriate for specific sales situations. The guide provides extensive details about these two options to assist you in selecting the appropriate business solution.

Shopify Draft Orders

A draft order represents an order staff create manually through the Shopify admin before customer payment conclusion. Order drafting serves customized orders along with bulk pricing and transactions outside the standard checkout process.

How It Works

• Navigate to Orders → Draft Orders in Shopify Admin.
• Add products, modify pricing, adjust taxes or shipping, and apply discounts.
• Choose one of the following actions:
  • Mark as paid manually (if payment is received outside Shopify)
  • Send an invoice to the customer for online payment.

• The draft order turns into an ordinary Shopify order the moment payment finishes.

Pros and Cons of Draft Orders

Pros:

• Users gain complete authority to set rates and amend their products.
• The platform functions best for custom items along with large wholesale deals.
• Bypasses Shopify’s standard discount limitations.
• Allows deferred invoice payments.

Cons:

• Requires manual creation and management.
• Not scalable for large-scale promotions.
• The payment process for customers occurs after their standard checkout completion.

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Shopify Discounts 

A discount in business represents temporary price cuts on products and checkout processes which aim to boost sales quantities.

Types of Discounts

• Automated Discounts:  Activate at checkout points if particular conditions such as Buy One Get One Free arise. A Shopify store can apply only one automated discount for each order.
• Discount Codes: Customers manually enter a promo code (e.g., SUMMER10) for a discount.
• Line Item Discount: The merchant selectively applies Line Item Discounts to their draft order items through manual adjustment.

How It Works

• Go to Admin → Discounts.
• Define discount conditions (e.g., minimum order value, customer group, applicable products).
• The checkout process automatically applies discounts from Shopify when specified conditions become valid.

Pros and Cons of Discounts

Pros:

• Discount creation allows both manual coding and automated application.
• Discount offers lead customers to make purchases while increasing sales performance.
• Ideal for large-scale promotions like Black Friday.
• System with flexible use enables discounts for individual products and collections and complete order pricing.
• Customers can apply numerous discounts when discounts are configured correctly.

Cons:

• Shopify enables just a single automatic discount per shopping cart.
• Prices from discounts cannot be changed manually since draft orders lack this feature.
• Not compatible with certain third-party apps, subscriptions, or payment methods.
• Customers need to type in discount codes manually when these codes lack automatic discount functionality.

Which One Should You Use?

Shopify Draft Orders should be used to handle complex large-scale orders that exceed 20 items when customers need individual price adjustments and customized discounts. The method serves special needs of various clients effectively. Standard Discounts operate best for wide-ranging automated promotions that scale smoothly and consistently among all your customer groups. The manual control through Draft Orders enables the handling of complex order situations but Discounts streamline sales strategies because they save time and ensure consistency. Each customer receives unique pricing through Draft Orders and Discounts enable scalable bulk promotions.

Conclusion

Both Draft Orders and Discounts serve different purposes within Shopify. The special pricing flexibility of Draft Orders suits bulk orders while Discounts serve best as automated promotion tools to enhance conversion rates. Selection of the discount method depends on how your business operates and what specific promotional strategy you aim to implement.