What customers see, orders and reports

Where shoppers learn about an offer, the cart messages and the gift box, an order with its free items in the admin and in My Account, what happens on a refund, and the reports. With worked examples.

Telling shoppers about the offer

Each promotion decides where it is shown, in the Storefront display box on the right of its editor. Every place reads the same promotion; the switches never make a second copy of the deal.

An offer on a product page means "this product takes part". The cart decides whether the gift is earned.

The cart rows

Each running promotion with Cart progress messaging gets a row with a bar that fills up. The words depend on where the cart stands; these are from Harbor & Pine's carts:

Next to the totals, the gift box (its heading is Customer-facing label on Settings, Free Gifts at the start) says how many gifts are waiting ("You have 1 free gift to choose.") or are in the cart ("1 free gift is in your cart.").

The promotions page

On Settings, choose an existing page as Policy page, or use Create policy page: it makes a draft page named Current Promotions with the list already in it. Write your own introduction and terms around it, then publish (Edit policy page, View policy page). The list itself is the block Current Free Gifts & BOGO Promotions, or the shortcode [freebie_promotions_current], and it updates by itself: each running promotion with its name, what must be bought and what is given, its conditions, the short and the full description, and the levels of a ladder.

Choosing the gift

Gifts are optional: a shopper may leave a gift unchosen and check out. A gift added automatically (a specific product, or the same product) is put in the cart with the notice "An earned free gift was added to your cart." Whenever the cart changes (a product removed, a coupon added, signing in), the offer is checked again and the gift is kept, changed or withdrawn. The whole path, step by step with pictures: Your first promotion.

In the order

Worked example: an order with two free items

Parker Vance bought a Ridgeline tent ($224.10 with the store's autumn pricing) and a wool throw blanket ($118). Two promotions gave a free item: "Free beanie with orders over $150" (the Harbor Knit Beanie) and "Buy a tent, get a steel bottle free" (the Insulated Steel Bottle). Order #313 has four lines and a total of $342.10.

In the admin order (WooCommerce → Orders), each free item is an ordinary line at $0.00 with "Free reward from:" and the promotion's name (for example "Free reward from: Free beanie with orders over $150 (Added automatically)").

Under the order details, Gift promotions lists each promotion with its product, and Free Gifts & BOGO inventory says what WooCommerce did with the stock ("WooCommerce currently records 2 reward units as stock-reduced.").

The customer sees the same order under My Account → Orders: the free items at $0.00, and below the table a Free Gifts list (promotion: product). The order emails carry the same list.

Stock goes down for a gift as for any product. If the order is cancelled or fails, WooCommerce puts it back.

A gift sent by hand

To give one customer a gift without a promotion, open Send a gift: choose the Customer, up to ten Gift products (simple products or exact variations, one of each) and, if you like, a Message, then Send gift. Free Gifts & BOGO creates a WooCommerce order for that customer with nothing to pay:

• It ships to the customer's saved shipping address (or to their billing address when they have no separate one) and appears in their account.
• Each gift is a line at $0.00, marked "Gift sent by hand" on the order screen and listed under Gift promotions as "Sent by hand". The customer sees the gifts under "Gift from the store" and your message as the order's note, in the order email and in My Account.
• WooCommerce finishes the order at once: Processing (Completed when nothing needs processing, such as a downloadable product), stock reduced, its usual order emails sent.
• Licensed AffStackDev software and gift cards are never gifts; out-of-stock and unpublished products are refused too. Sending the same form twice creates no second order.

Gifts sent by hand next to the form lists the latest ten.

Worked example: a beanie to say sorry

Parker Vance's tent arrived a week late. The shop manager opens Send a gift, finds Parker under Customer, picks the Harbor Knit Beanie under Gift products, writes "Sorry your tent was late. This beanie is on us." and chooses Send gift. The screen says "Gift order #1287 created. WooCommerce sends its usual order emails." Order #1287 is Processing at $0.00, ships to Parker's saved address, and one beanie less is in stock. Parker's order email shows the beanie under "Gift from the store" and the message as the order's note.

A refund

When a refund with an amount, or a refund of paid items, leaves at least one free item in the order, Free Gifts & BOGO marks the order for your review. It only reminds you: it does not remove the gift, charge for it or change the refund. What happens to the gift is your policy; write it into the terms on your promotions page. The reminder is the setting Refund review warning on Settings (on at the start).

Worked example: the tent comes back, the gifts stay

Parker returns the tent of order #313 unused. The owner refunds the tent line (Refund, the tent's quantity 1, the reason "Tent returned unused."). The beanie and the bottle stay in the order, though without the tent the order no longer reaches $150 and has no tent. Free Gifts & BOGO then shows, under the order details, "Refund review needed: Paid items were refunded while at least one free reward remains. Review eligibility manually; the plugin does not remove gifts or change refunds automatically."

It also adds one private note to the order (customers do not see private notes):

Reports

Reports (and the Dashboard) for the last 7, 30, 90 or 365 days (Report period):

Counted are orders in Processing, Completed or On hold; cancelled and failed orders are left out. An order that used two promotions shows up under both; do not add the two lines together.

These numbers tell you what happened. They do not tell you profit, the cost of the gifts or how much more you sold because of the offer.

If something does not work

Removing Free Gifts & BOGO

Deactivating keeps everything. Deleting the plugin also keeps your promotions, unless you ticked Uninstall behavior on Settings first. Orders always keep the record of the gifts they contained.