Deal of the Day

Introduction

We're excited to introduce you to the latest marketing and promotion feature for your Volusion store. Deal of the Day not only gives you the ability to set up one deal per day, you can schedule multiple deals for the same day, or even schedule deals to span multiple days. And with social media capabilities enabled, you can leverage Facebook Like, Send and Share This features for individual deals. So what are you waiting for? Let's get started.

Enabling Deal of The Day

By default, Deal of the Day is disabled. The feature needs to be enabled and configured to display the link on your storefront and deals on the Deal of the Day page.

To enable and display the Deal of the Day page:

1. Go to Marketing > Deal of the Day.
2. Click on the Settings button.
3. In the Change All Deals of the Day Settings popup window, check Enable Deal of the Day.
4. Check Show Stock Status for applicable products if you want to display the stock status value for products that are set with a Stock Status and also set to Do Not Allow Backorders.*
5. Select the Navigation Menu in which you want to display the Deal of the Day link. If you prefer to send out links to the deal of the day page in emails or newsletters, you can leave this as Hidden.
6. If you want to change the text of the menu link to the Deal of the Day page, edit the Link Text field as appropriate.
7. If you want to customize the message that is displayed on the Deal of the Day page when either no deals are available or Deal of the Day is disabled, edit the No Deals Message field.
8. Save your settings.

Note: If your store has the Immediate Publish feature disabled, a check box is displayed in the Settings entitled Publish my template after saving. If you check this, your changes will be published when you save the Deal of the Day. Your storefront link will not display until your changes are published.

* These settings are on the Advanced Settings | Stock tab of the Product page.

Creating a Deal

1. From the Deal of the Day admin page, click Add.
2. The Deal Details page is displayed.
3. Search for and select the required product from the product search tool.

Note: Certain products cannot be used as Deal of the Day offerings. See the product restrictions list below.

4. Enter the Deal Price.
5. Enter the headline for this deal in the Headline field. You can use the HTML Editor link to access the Volusion Easy Editor if you want to style the headline with HTML, graphics, etc.
6. Select either Short Product Description or Custom Description from the dropdown menu.
   
   If you select Short Product Description, this will be taken from the product's Advanced Settings | Product Descriptions tab. 
   
   If you select Custom Description, you need to enter the description for the deal here. You can use the HTML Editor here too.
7. Select the beginning and end dates for the deal. Note the times of the start and end dates are 12:00 AM and 11:59:59 PM (respectively) of the dates selected. These times correspond to the timezone of the store.

 

Note: The number of days of the scheduled deal will display in bold once the dates are selected.

8. Click Save to save your new deal.

Product Restrictions

A product cannot be used, or will result in an invalid deal, if any of the following apply:

• it has been deleted between the creation of the deal and the deal becoming active
• it has been set up with child products
• it has a value in the Is Child Of Product Code field (Products > Advanced Settings | Misc)
• it has the Private Section Customer Only section checked (Products > Advanced Settings | Product Display)
• it has a Setup Price (Products > Advanced Settings | Pricing)
• it has a Recurring Price (Products > Advanced Settings | Pricing)
• it has Hide Product checked (Products > Advanced Settings | Product Display)
• It has Hide Product When Out Of Stock checked (Products > Advanced Settings | Product Display)
• it has a value other than NULL in the Min Qty field (Products > Advanced Settings | Misc)
• it has Allow Price Edit checked (Products > Advanced Settings | Misc)
• it has text in the AddtoCartBtn Replacement Text field (Products > Advanced Settings | Product Display)
• it has Enable Options Inventory Control checked (Products | Basic Product Info)

Temporary Products

Temporary products can be selected. However, if the Display Begin Date is in the future, the product will show in the Deal of the Day product picker, but the Deal will not function until the Display Begin Date.

If the Display End Date has passed, the product will be ineligible for use as a Deal of the Day.

The Deal of the Day table

When you have created a deal it will be displayed in the Deal of the Day table. Deals are automatically assigned an ID number which cannot be edited.

You can edit and delete deals from this page. You can also choose to display all deals or hide expired deals in the table using the Hide Expired Deals link in the top right corner of the table.

If you change product details for an existing deal and this makes the product unavailable for a deal, this will be indicated by a  icon in the ID column.

If the Deal of the Day feature is disabled, a message stating this is displayed. Click on the Enable? link to enable the feature again.

You can click the View Live Page link to display the Deal of the Day page.

What visitors see: the dealoftheday.asp page

The deal of the day page can be accessed either by clicking on the Deal of the Day link or by entering the URL, http://yourdomain.com/dealoftheday.asp, in the browser.

Individual deals can be linked to using http://yourdomain.com/dealoftheday.asp?deal=n, where n is the deal's ID number. When you access the deal of the day page using a deal ID, that deal is displayed at the top of the list of active deals.

If accessed using http://yourdomain.com/dealoftheday.asp, all active deals are listed in expiry order - i.e., those that expire soonest are displayed first. If more than one deal with the same end date is active, then the deal with the largest percentage of savings is displayed first, and then, if necessary, by ascending product name.

If social media is enabled on your store, the Facebook Like and Send buttons and the Share This button will be displayed for each deal so that visitors can post deals to their Facebook pages and elsewhere.

When a visitor follows a link to a deal, one of the following will happen:

If the Deal is...	Then...
Active	The deal is shown at the top of the page followed by all other active deals in default sort order.
Expired	The product image, current price and link to the Product page will display at the top of the Deal of the Day page, followed by all other active deals displayed in default sort order.
Scheduled for the future	A message stating the deal is not found will be displayed at the top of the page, followed by all active deals displayed in default sort order.
Invalid	A message stating the deal is not found will be displayed at the top of the page, followed by all active deals displayed in default sort order.

Buying A Deal

When a customer clicks on the Buy button, the soft shopping cart is displayed showing the deal product unless the product has options. If the product has options, the product page is displayed. The customer chooses their options, then proceeds as normal to the shopping cart or carries on shopping.

The Product Page for an active deal product

For all active deal of the day products, the discount price and savings are displayed beneath the regular price.

This means that customers coming to this page via links other than the Deal of the Day page are still entitled to the deal. The deal price is also shown on any category pages for this product and in any searches that return this product.

Notes

Editing the Deal of the Day text

Most of the text elements on the Deal of the Day page are Page Text, and can therefore be edited either using Quick Edit or by going to Design > Site Content, and selecting Page Text from the Article Group dropdown. Then select Deal of the Day from the Categories dropdown. You can then edit the page text IDs 806 - 817 as appropriate.