Unable to apply discount code on a free order on a subscription.

[rudisnudes]

We are a subscription service selling stockings.

We want all customers who subscribe to receive first delivery of two pairs for free. We also want to give certain type of subscribers an ongoing 20% discount. And we offer free shipping. 

So, to summarise: 

1. if a customer subscribes to a minimum of two pairs of stocking per delivery, they get first delivery for free including free shipping

2. if a certain customer is also eligible to a 20% discount, they need to add a discount code when subscribing. This should automatically become applicable from the second delivery 

So far, because the first order is zero, shopify doesn't allow 20% discount code to be applied. 

Can you suggest any work around?

[Bayhill]

This would be very interesting to hear if there is a solution to. We have more or less an identical issue, use Shopify + ReCharge for our memberships, but with the only difference that our subscription (Recharge Membership / Loyality) is a software subscription, meaning no shipping or delivery.

We offer a 14 day free trial which is set up as a variant with a €0 charge, and after 14 days, there is a ReCharge workflow that kicks in and changes the variant to the one with the right charge. 

We've tried creating discounts with fixed amounts, with % amounts, for specific products, for specific collections, you name it.. Nothing gets us past "[DISCOUNT NAME] discount code isn’t valid for the items in your cart". 

They've been created in both Recharge and Shopify with identical conditions.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[rudisnudes]

Hello,

Apologies for the delayed response. We tried every avenue to add a discount
to ongoing orders with a free initial offer but it’s impossible on Shopify.

The reason for this is because you cannot add a discount to a zero priced
purchase. There are no app solutions.

We came up with ideas of a $0.01 initial subscription fee but that would
change the initial offer. We found a work around in gifting after an
initial paid subscription.

Sorry I can’t help more.

Kind regards

Rudi

[Bayhill]

Yeah, our integration partner, as well as Recharge also suggested having a $0.01 initial cost of the product and then change the price via a workflow, but that felt weirder than our original idea (albeit which didn't work, haha..).

We have now come to the conclusion that the best way forward is to:

• Remove the whole variant setup in Shopify, so that we just have our monthly and yearly installments (which previously had two variants each, one for the free trial and one for the paid version which was changed in a Recharge workflow after purchase with a delay of 14 days),
• Add an automatic "Free Trial" discount during checkout which brings the price down to zero for the initial purchase,
• Remove the product variant switcher in the two Recharge workflows.

This will enable our users to subscribe to the service, get a 14 day free trial (through the automatically applied discount code), as well as apply any discount codes that they've received manually during checkout (like 3 months for free, or 50% off a yearly, etc.).

We haven't tested it yet, but it seems promising.