Discounts not showing on product in Store, or online until you get to checkout

Store Design

Topic summary

Merchants are frustrated that automatic discounts created in Shopify don’t display on product pages, collection pages, or the homepage—only appearing at checkout or in the cart. This creates a poor shopping experience since customers can’t see which items are on sale while browsing.

Key Issues:

  • Automatic discounts require Shopify POS Pro ($389/month vs. $99 Basic plan) to work at physical point-of-sale terminals
  • Many basic features require paid third-party apps (personalization, reviews, shipping calculations)
  • Merchants view this as a “money grab” rather than legitimate platform limitation

Shopify’s Position:
One user explained discounts are calculated at cart/checkout due to technical complexity (bundles, currencies, apps), making earlier display computationally expensive and potentially inaccurate.

Workarounds Shared:

  1. Manual compare-at pricing: Export products to Excel, move prices to “compare-at price” column, calculate discounted prices using formulas, then re-import (free but manual)
  2. Individual product editing: Manually set discounted price and compare-at price for each variant to show strikethrough pricing
  3. Slide cart apps: Allow discount code entry before checkout

Current Status:
No native solution exists. Discussion remains unresolved with merchants expressing strong dissatisfaction and some considering switching platforms (Square, WordPress). Multiple users confirm the issue affects both free themes (Dawn, Ride) and premium themes (Aurora).

Summarized with AI on November 2. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
7

#1- I’m talking about automatically discounted sale prices actually showing on sale on our website… Right now they need to add items to the cart, then flip over to the cart to see if that item is on sale. Would that be a fun shopping experience that gets you to buy more if you can’t see what items are actually on sale?

#2- I’m saying if I’m selling a $25 item for 25% off, it should show the reg price of $25 crossed out and the sale price of $18.75 beside it on the item page so they know its on sale… Why should they have to put it in a cart, then go to the cart to see if it’s on sale…

#3 Me having to pay an extra $3500 a year just so discounts show at the till in my brick and mortar store is a money grab and nothing else. There’s no way you’ll convince me otherwise, it’s a basic function the and they are ripping people off to access it.

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