How To Set Sale Prices As A Percentage On Woocommerce

How to Set Sale Prices as a Percentage on WooCommerce: A Complete Guide

Introduction

Running sales and offering discounts are essential strategies for driving traffic to your WooCommerce store, boosting conversions, and clearing out inventory. While you can manually set sale prices for each product, it can become time-consuming and inefficient, especially with a large product catalog. A more effective method is to set sale prices as a percentage, allowing you to apply uniform discounts across your store or specific product categories. This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to set sale prices as a percentage on WooCommerce, exploring both the built-in options and plugin solutions. By mastering this technique, you can streamline your pricing strategy and maximize your sales potential.

Main Part: Implementing Percentage-Based Discounts in WooCommerce

There are a few different ways to set sale prices as a percentage in WooCommerce. Let’s explore the built-in capabilities and plugin solutions.

Option 1: Using WooCommerce’s Scheduled Sales (Limited Percentage Functionality)

While WooCommerce doesn’t directly offer a percentage-based sale price input field, you can achieve a similar effect by calculating the price reduction manually and applying it. This is best suited for smaller catalogs or very specific promotional periods.

1. Navigate to the Product: Go to Products in your WordPress dashboard and select the product you want to edit.

2. Edit the Product: Click on the product title to open the editing page.

3. Access General Settings: In the Product data meta box, click on the “General” tab.

4. Calculate Sale Price: Determine the percentage discount you want to offer (e.g., 20% off). Calculate the discount amount and subtract it from the regular price to get the sale price.

5. Enter the Sale Price: In the “Sale price” field, enter the calculated sale price.

6. Schedule the Sale (Optional): Click the “Schedule” link next to the “Sale price” field. Set the “Sale start date” and “Sale end date” to define the duration of your sale.

7. Update the Product: Click the “Update” button to save your changes.

Important Considerations:

• This method requires manual calculation for each product, which is inefficient for larger stores.
• It doesn’t offer true percentage-based control; you’re just setting a fixed sale price derived Discover insights on How To Check Abandon Cart On Woocommerce from a percentage calculation.

Option 2: Using a WooCommerce Plugin for Percentage-Based Sales

The most efficient and scalable way to set sale prices as a percentage is by using a WooCommerce plugin. Several plugins offer this functionality, providing greater control and automation. Here’s an example using a popular plugin, “WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing & Discounts” (many others function similarly):

1. Install and Activate a Plugin: Install and activate a WooCommerce dynamic pricing plugin from the WordPress plugin repository or a trusted source. Popular choices include “WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing & Discounts,” “Discount Rules for WooCommerce,” and “Advanced Coupons.” For this example, we will assume you have access to a plugin with percentage discount capability.

2. Access the Plugin Settings: Navigate to the plugin’s settings page within your WordPress dashboard. This usually appears under “WooCommerce” or as a separate menu item.

3. Create a New Pricing Rule: Look for an option to create a new pricing rule or discount rule. The exact terminology will vary depending Check out this post: How To Link Your Woocommerce With Amazon on the plugin.

4. Configure the Rule:

• Rule Name: Give your rule a descriptive name (e.g., “20% Off All Products”).
• Discount Type: Choose “Percentage Discount” or a similar option.
• Discount Value: Enter the desired discount percentage (e.g., 20).
• Conditions (Optional): Define conditions to target specific products or categories. You can apply the discount to:
• All Products: Apply the discount to your entire store.
• Specific Categories: Select specific product categories to apply the discount.
• Specific Products: Target individual products.
• User Roles: Offer discounts to specific user roles (e.g., members, wholesale customers).
• Schedule (Optional): Set a start and end date for the discount.
• Priority: Assign a priority if you have multiple discount rules. The rule with the highest priority will be applied first.

5. Save the Rule: Save the new pricing rule.

Example (Conceptual PHP Code):

While the actual implementation lives within the plugin, imagine a simplified version of how the discount might be applied:

 <?php // Hypothetical function to apply a percentage discount function apply_percentage_discount( $price, $percentage ) { $discount_amount = $price * ( $percentage / 100 ); $sale_price = $price - $discount_amount; return $sale_price; } 

// Example usage (inside a plugin context):

$regular_price = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), ‘_regular_price’, true );

$discount_percentage = 20; // Get percentage from plugin settings

$sale_price = apply_percentage_discount( $regular_price, $discount_percentage );

// Update the sale price in WooCommerce

update_post_meta( get_the_ID(), ‘_sale_price’, $sale_price );

?>

Advantages of Using Plugins:

• Automation: Easily apply percentage discounts across your store or specific product groups.
• Flexibility: Target specific products, categories, or user roles.
• Scheduling: Schedule sales in advance and automatically activate/deactivate them.
• Advanced Features: Many plugins offer advanced features like tiered pricing, bulk discounts, and coupon code integration.

Cons of Using Plugins:

• Cost: Many robust plugins are premium and require purchase.
• Compatibility: Ensure the plugin is compatible with your WooCommerce version and other plugins.
• Performance: Poorly coded plugins can impact your site’s performance. Choose reputable plugins with good reviews.

Option 3: Custom Code (For Advanced Users)

For advanced users with coding knowledge, you can implement percentage-based discounts using custom code. This involves using WooCommerce hooks and filters to modify the product prices dynamically. This method is more complex but offers the most flexibility.

Important Notes:

• Custom code requires a strong understanding of PHP, WordPress, and WooCommerce hooks.
• Incorrect code can break your site. Always test thoroughly on a staging environment before implementing on a live site.
• Use child theme to store custom code.

Example Custom Code (Illustrative):

The following snippet illustrates how you *might* approach this. *This is a simplified example and needs to be adapted to your specific requirements and tested thoroughly.* Add this to your child theme’s `functions.php` file or a custom plugin:

 <?php /** 
Adjust price based on a global discount percentage
 
* Applies a percentage discount to all products.
 
This is a basic example; you'd need to add conditions, scheduling, etc.
 */ function my_custom_percentage_discount( $price, $_product ) { $discount_percentage = 10; // Define your discount percentage here 

// Optional: Add conditions to target specific categories or products

// if ( has_term( ‘category-slug’, ‘product_cat’, $_product->get_id() ) ) {

$discount_amount = $price * ( $discount_percentage / 100 );

$new_price = $price – $discount_amount;

// Ensure the price is not negative

return max( 0, $new_price );

// Optional: Close the conditional statement if you used it

// }

// Return the original price if the conditions are not met

// return $price;

}

add_filter( ‘woocommerce_get_price’, ‘my_custom_percentage_discount’, 10, 2 );

add_filter( ‘woocommerce_get_sale_price’, ‘my_custom_percentage_discount’, 10, 2 );

add_filter( ‘woocommerce_get_regular_price’, ‘my_custom_percentage_discount’, 10, 2 );

/

* Ensure the sale price is always lower than regular price

*/

function my_validate_sale_price( $is_valid, $product ) {

$reg_price = $product->get_regular_price();

$sale_price = $product->get_sale_price();

if ( $sale_price >= $reg_price && $sale_price != 0 ) {

return false;

}

return $is_valid;

}

add_filter( ‘woocommerce_is_valid_sale_price_range’, ‘my_validate_sale_price’, 10, 2 );

?>

Explanation:

1. `my_custom_percentage_discount()` Function: This function is hooked into WooCommerce’s `woocommerce_get_price`, `woocommerce_get_sale_price`, and `woocommerce_get_regular_price` filters. This means that it will be called whenever WooCommerce needs to retrieve the price of a product.

2. `$discount_percentage` Variable: This variable defines the discount percentage. You would need to modify this value (potentially based on options stored in your WooCommerce settings) to change the discount.

3. `$discount_amount`: Calculates discount amount.

4. `$new_price`: Subtracts discount amount from the regular price.

5. `add_filter()`: This function adds the custom function to the specified WooCommerce filter.

6. `my_validate_sale_price`: This function is added to the `woocommerce_is_valid_sale_price_range` filter to ensure that sale price is always lower than regular price.

Caveats:

• This is a *very* basic example. You would need to add logic for:
• Reading the discount percentage from a WooCommerce setting (so you can easily change it).
• Applying the discount only to certain categories, products, or user roles.
• Scheduling the discount.
• Consider using transient to cache pricing to improve performance.

Pros of Custom Code:

• Maximum Flexibility: Complete control over how discounts are applied.
• No Plugin Dependency: Avoid reliance on third-party plugins.
• Performance Optimization: Write efficient code tailored to your specific needs.

Cons of Custom Code:

• Technical Expertise Required: Requires PHP, WordPress, and WooCommerce knowledge.
• Maintenance Burden: You are responsible for maintaining and updating the code.
• Potential Conflicts: Custom code can conflict with other plugins or themes.