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Order Discounts with Exclusions: Complete Guide

Order discounts apply savings to the entire cart when customers meet certain conditions. With exclusions, you can prevent specific collections from receiving the discount while still allowing the offer to apply to other items.

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Understanding Order Discounts

What Are Order Discounts?

Discounts that apply to the entire order total, rather than individual products

Why Use Exclusions?

Protect margins on premium collections while still offering value to customers
Order discounts are powerful tools for driving overall sales volume and increasing average order value. They offer customers savings on their total cart value when they meet defined conditions.

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Core Concepts

Before diving into examples, it’s important to understand these key terms:
Items in the cart that meet the basic requirements of the offer. For order discounts, this typically means any physical product (not gift cards or virtual products).
Qualifying items that are not in any excluded collections. The discount is only applied to eligible items.
Items that belong to collections you’ve configured to exclude from the discount. These items do not count toward the discount calculation.

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How Exclusions Work for Order Discounts

The exclusion behavior for order discounts is different from item-level discounts:

All Items Excluded

If all items in the cart are from excluded collections, the discount will not trigger at all.

Mixed Cart

If some items are excluded and some are not, the discount will trigger and apply only to eligible items.
The discount is calculated based on the total price of all eligible items (items not in excluded collections). Excluded items are not included in the discount calculation.

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Example: “Buy 1 Get 10% Off Your Order” with Exclusions

Let’s walk through a complete example to see how this works in practice.

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Setup

Offer Name: Buy 1 get 10% off your order Offer Type: Order Discount Discount: 10% off entire order Exclusion: “New Snowboards” collection

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Cart Scenarios

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Scenario 1: Cart with Only Eligible Items

All items in the cart are eligible for the discount.
Cart Contents:
  • Item 1: Snowboard (Price: $500, Not in “New Snowboards”)
  • Item 2: Boots (Price: $200, Not in “New Snowboards”)
Calculation:
  • Subtotal: $700
  • Discount: 10% of 700=700 = 70
  • Final Total: $630

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Scenario 2: Cart with Only Excluded Items

When all items are excluded, the discount does not apply.
Cart Contents:
  • Item 1: Snowboard (Price: $500, In “New Snowboards”)
  • Item 2: Binding (Price: $200, In “New Snowboards”)
Calculation:
  • Subtotal: $700
  • Discount: $0 (No discount applied because all items are excluded)
  • Final Total: $700
This is a key difference from item-level discounts. For order discounts, if all items are excluded, the offer doesn’t trigger at all.

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Scenario 3: Cart with Both Eligible and Excluded Items

The discount applies only to eligible items.
Cart Contents:
  • Item 1: Snowboard (Price: $500, In “New Snowboards” - excluded)
  • Item 2: Boots (Price: $200, Not in “New Snowboards” - eligible)
Calculation:
  • Subtotal: $700
  • Eligible items total: $200 (only the boots)
  • Discount: 10% of 200=200 = 20
  • Final Total: $680
The discount applies to the eligible items only, even though excluded items remain in the cart at full price.

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Scenario 4: Multiple Quantities

The discount calculation works the same way with multiple quantities.
Cart Contents:
  • Item 1: Snowboard (Price: 500,Quantity:2,In"NewSnowboards")−Total500, Quantity: 2, In "New Snowboards") - Total 1,000
  • Item 2: Boots (Price: 200,Quantity:3,Notin"NewSnowboards")−Total200, Quantity: 3, Not in "New Snowboards") - Total 600
Calculation:
  • Subtotal: $1,600
  • Eligible items total: $600 (only the boots)
  • Discount: 10% of 600=600 = 60
  • Final Total: $1,540

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Real-World Examples

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Example 1: Basic Order Discount (No Exclusions)

Setup:
  • Offer: “Buy 1 get 10% off your order”
  • No exclusions configured
Customer Cart:
  • Snowboard: $500
Result:
  • Discount: 10% of 500=500 = 50
  • Final Total: $450

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Example 2: Excluding Sale Items Collection

Setup:
  • Offer: “Buy 1 get 10% off your order”
  • Excluded Collection: “Sale Items”
Customer Cart:
  • Jacket (regular price): $200
  • T-shirt (on sale, in “Sale Items” collection): $50
Result:
  • Discount applies only to jacket: 10% of 200=200 = 20
  • Final Total: 200+200 + 50 - 20=20 = 230
The sale item doesn’t receive the discount, but the regular-priced jacket does.

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Example 3: No Qualifying Items

Setup:
  • Offer: “Buy 1 get 10% off your order”
  • Active and enabled
Customer Cart:
  • Gift card: $100
Result:
  • Discount: $0 (Gift cards are not qualifying items)
  • Final Total: $100
Order discounts require at least one qualifying physical product. Gift cards and virtual products don’t qualify.

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Edge Cases and Special Scenarios

If the cart only contains gift cards, the offer will not apply, even if the gift cards are not in an excluded collection. The offer requires at least one physical product.
If an item’s price is zero (e.g., a free gift), it is still considered a qualifying item unless it is in an excluded collection. However, it won’t contribute to the discounted amount since it has no price.
If a product is in multiple collections, and any of those collections are excluded, the product is excluded from the discount.
Order discounts apply to the original price of the item before any other discounts. If an item is already on sale, the order discount still applies to its regular price.
Exclusion applies at the collection level. If a product belongs to an excluded collection, it will be excluded from the discount, even if it also belongs to other, non-excluded collections.

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How Priority Affects Order Discounts

Order discounts are evaluated after item discounts in the discount evaluation order.

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Evaluation Order

  1. Item Discounts (Product Discounts, BXGY, BMSM, Bundles)
  2. Order Discounts (like “Buy 1 get 10% off your order”)
  3. Shipping Discounts

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Interaction with Item Discounts

  • If an item has an item discount applied, it can still be considered a qualifying item for order discounts
  • The order discount is calculated on the prices after item discounts have been applied
  • Order discounts apply to the remaining subtotal after item discounts

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Multiple Order Discounts

If multiple order discounts are active:
  • The one with the highest priority will be applied first
  • Only one order discount typically applies per order (unless configured otherwise)
  • Priority helps determine which discount takes precedence
For more information on how priority works, see our Priority and Stacking Guide.

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Troubleshooting

Check these common issues:
  • ✅ Verify that the cart contains at least one qualifying item (physical product)
  • ✅ Check if all items in the cart are in excluded collections
  • ✅ Confirm that the offer is active (not disabled or scheduled for the future)
  • ✅ Verify the offer is assigned to the correct sales channel
  • ✅ Check if another order discount with higher priority is taking precedence
Verify these settings:
  • ✅ Ensure that the discount is being calculated only on the eligible items (those not in excluded collections)
  • ✅ Double-check the prices of the items in the cart
  • ✅ Verify that excluded collections are correctly configured
  • ✅ Check if item discounts have already been applied (order discounts apply after item discounts)
Possible causes:
  • ✅ Verify that the exclusion is correctly configured in the offer settings
  • ✅ Check that the product is actually in the excluded collection
  • ✅ Ensure the collection exclusion was saved properly
  • ✅ Test with a different product to confirm the exclusion is working
This is expected behavior:For order discounts, if all items in the cart are from excluded collections, the discount will not trigger. This is different from item-level discounts where excluded items simply don’t receive the discount.To fix: Ensure at least one item in the cart is not in an excluded collection.

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Best Practices

Test Thoroughly

Always test your offers with different cart combinations to ensure they behave as expected

Clear Communication

Clearly communicate to customers which items are excluded from the discount

Protect Margins

Use exclusions to protect margins on premium or low-margin collections

Monitor Performance

Track how exclusions affect conversion rates and average order value
Remember: For order discounts, exclusions prevent items from being included in the discount calculation. If all items are excluded, the discount won’t trigger at all. If some items are excluded, the discount applies only to eligible items.