Free tool
Shopify Discount Method Chooser
Change the price, use an automatic discount, or issue a code. They fail in different ways. Answer four questions and see which one fits.
Change the variant price
A sale badge, a strikethrough, and a sorted-by-price collection all read the variant price. Nothing else makes the number on the product page go down.
Watch out for: You are editing real data, so the only thing that matters is whether you can put it back. Write down the original price and compare-at for every variant before you touch anything.
| Price change | Automatic | Code | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shows a lower price on the product page | Yes | No, only in the cart | No, only after the code is entered |
| Can be limited to certain customers | No | By segment only | Yes |
| Can depend on the cart (spend over, buy N) | No | Yes | Yes |
| What is left behind when it ends | Edited prices you must put back | Nothing | Nothing |
| What goes wrong most often | Prices never get restored | Shoppers do not believe a discount they cannot see | The code never reaches half the people |
Only a price change moves the number on the product page, and only a price change leaves something behind that has to be put back afterwards. Those two facts are the same fact, and they are the reason most sale disasters are price-change disasters rather than discount-code disasters.