Newsletter Discount
Newsletter Discount is a Zen Cart™ discounting module which allows you
to offer reduced prices for newsletter subscribers. It can be configured
to work with the native Zen Cart newsletter facility or with
MailChimp.
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Relevance: Zen Cart™ 1.3.5 - 1.3.9, 1.5.0
Current Version: 3.0 (MailChimp API 1.3)
Note: You must use the same version of the MailChimp API in both
the MailChimp integration and Newsletter Discounts (if you use both).
You cannot mix API versions!
Cost: Free, but
donation appreciated
Location: Zen Cart Downloads page, under Pricing Tools.
Download: Newsletter Discount on Zen Cart Downloads Page
Add-Ons:
For MailChimp users, the
MailChimp Integration
contribution interoperates with Newsletter Discount.
Support Thread: Newsletter Discount Support Thread
FAQ: click here
Installation Instructions: click here
Overview:
Newsletter Discount allows you to offer a percentage discount
on purchases made by someone who has signed up for your newsletter.
Newsletter Discount is an order total module; it only shows up
on the second page of checkout.
Payment Page displaying Newsletter Discount
Installation Instructions:
- Back up everything! Try this in a test environment prior to installing
it on a live shop.
If you have installed this module before, go to
admin->modules->order total->newsletter discount,
note your settings, and press "remove" to uninstall the module.
- Copy the contents of the unzipped folder to the root directory of your
shop.
- Login to admin and in Modules->Order Total you will see 'Newsletter Discount' listed along with all the other modules available.
- Click on 'Newsletter Discount' to highlight the module and click on 'Install'
-
If you are using MailChimp, login to your MailChimp account.
At the top of the Mailchimp page is a dropdown called "Account."
Select "api keys & info" and add an api key to your account.
This is the value you should enter in the "API Key" field in
Newsletter Discount config.
- Set the parameters according to your discounting plan.
- If you wish, follow the guidelines in marketing
to advertise your discounts.
A Note on Taxes
(If you are not subject to a VAT and do not mix taxable and
non-taxable products, please skip this section.)
The way taxes are handled internally in Zen Cart 1.x is that the entire tax amount is stored in the cart; the tax is not broken down on an item by item basis. For this reason, tax recalculation after discounting may not work perfectly if items which attract different levels of tax are in the cart - for example, taxable and non-taxable items. This issue is discussed in
this forum post, and we are hopeful that Zen Cart 2.x will solve this problem.
Included Taxes and My Mods
This section is only relevant to Zen Carts which
use "Display Prices with Tax" = true (in Admin->Configuration->My Store).
If your shop displays prices with tax included,
you should configure my discounting mods to use Include Tax = true
and set Re-Calculate tax to either "Standard" or "VAT" (depending on
how taxes are handled in your jurisdiction).
There was a time when my software would gross up percentage discounts
for tax but not currency based discounts.
I decided to change this
and handle both uniformly, so now (post April 2010) if you
configure one of my discount mods to use include taxes = true,
your discount will be grossed up whether it is a currency value
or a percentage.
Configuration:
Some shops will want to further customize their discounting policy.
User exits are provided to permit the following customizations:
- Include or exclude certain categories from discounting.
- Include or exclude certain products from discounting.
Specifically:
- The function exclude_category() shows you how to add categories to
a list of categories to not be discounted.
- The function exclude_product() shows you how to add products to
a list of products to not be discounted.
Each of these functions contains a simple example of how to use it using
item and category numbers like 99999, 99998, etc. Note that the "category"
of an item is its parent category; see
my category explanation page
for an explanation. Note that to use the category exclusions you must
be running Zen Cart 1.3.5 or greater.
The user exits are in includes/modules/order_total/ot_newsletter_discount.php.
MailChimp
MailChimp is an Email Service Provider; their business is managing
commercial email. They have a very reasonable per-email cost
model (unlike firms like Constant Contact, which charge per month
irrespective of how little mail you send).
You can integrate MailChimp into your Zen Cart using the
MailChimp Newsletter contribution.
The Newsletter Discount contribution uses the
MailChimp API to
communicate with MailChimp and determine whether the
customer is a newsletter subscriber.
Configuration of Newsletter Discounts when using MailChimp:
Marketing
A discounting plan reaches maximum effectiveness through advertising.
Customize the tpl_product_info_display.php file to advertise
your discounts. Put the file
includes/templates/template_default/templates/tpl_product_info_display.php
into includes/templates/<Your Template>/templates, and add this block
of code to the page:
<?php
$value = "ot_newsletter_discount.php";
include_once(zen_get_file_directory(DIR_WS_LANGUAGES . $_SESSION['language'] .
'/modules/order_total/', $value, 'false'));
include_once(DIR_WS_MODULES . "order_total/" . $value);
$discount = new ot_newsletter_discount();
echo '<div class="content" id="discountPolicy">';
$resp = $discount->get_html_policy();
echo $resp;
echo '</div>';
echo '<br class="clearBoth" />';
?>
The placement of this code is a matter of personal preference;
try placing it below the product description and adjust to your tastes.
You can put this code whereever you'd like. For example, here I have
placed it in tpl_modules_create_account.php so that new signups see the policy
when making their newsletter choice:
Files
(new)includes/languages/english/modules/order_total/ot_newsletter_discount.php
(new)includes/modules/order_total/ot_newsletter_discount.php
(new)includes/classes/MCAPI.class.php
Learning More about Newsletters
MailChimp provides some excellent resources to help you learn about
newsletters, whether or not you use their service. Start with
their
65 Page Email Marketing Guide.
Then take a look at their
Resource Center.
To learn more about the value proposition of the MailChimp service, go to their
features and benefits
page.
Major Versions
- 3.0 05/01/2012 - Update to new MailChimp API 1.3
- 2.0 08/01/2010 - Update to new MailChimp API 1.2
- 1.3 11/13/2008 - Resolve issue with PayPal IPN.
- 1.2 08/25/2008 - Upgrade to version 1.1 of MailChimp API.
- 1.1 06/01/2008 - Adding ways to customize the order total calculation; upgrade to version 1.0 of MailChimp API
- 1.0 04/02/2008 - First Release
FAQ
Q: I'm using exclude_category() and it's not working!
A:
Please see the
Category Issues
page for solutions.
Q: I do not want to discount products 12 and 13. How do I do this?
A: Update the function exclude_product() in includes/modules/order_total/ot_quantity_discount.php as follows:
function exclude_product($prid) {
$id = (int)$prid;
switch($id) {
case 12:
case 13:
return true;
}
return false;
}
Q: I only want discounts applied to items in category 11. How do I do this?
A: Update the function exclude_category() in includes/modules/order_total/ot_newsletter_discount.php as follows:
function exclude_category($category) {
switch($category) {
case 11:
return false;
}
return true;
}
Q: I don't want discounts applied to items in category 7. How do I do this?
A: Update the function exclude_category() in includes/modules/order_total/ot_newsletter_discount.php as follows:
function exclude_category($category) {
switch($category) {
case 7:
return true;
}
return false;
}
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