Guide
Create discounts in one sentence instead of filling in forms
On every plan of Hand-E AI Discounts, the free one included, you describe a discount in one sentence. The AI assistant finds the matching products and collections and suggests the complete discount. It creates the discount after your click. The discount stays inactive until you switch it on with a second click on “Switch on now”.
Many fields for a simple idea
5% off from 3 packs of tea, 10% off from 6 packs. The idea fits in one sentence. In the form it turns into a row of decisions: discount type, scope, finding the right collection, counting mode, tiers, title.
If you rarely create discounts, it's easy to miss a field or pick the wrong discount type. If you create them often, you click through the same steps again and again, for example for every seasonal promotion.
An assistant can take over the translation from sentence to form. What matters is that you see exactly what will come out of it before anything is created, and that nothing goes live unchecked.
Without an app: the form or Sidekick
Shopify offers two routes itself. For simple discounts, both are enough.
- Discount form: For a single percentage discount, a discount above a minimum purchase amount or free shipping, the form is filled in quickly, and you see every setting right there.
- Shopify Sidekick: Shopify's assistant in the admin helps with creating discounts, according to the help. As an example, Shopify names a discount code for 15% off a summer collection, one use per customer, ending on Sunday.
- Buy X get Y: you create it in the Shopify form. The assistant in Hand-E AI Discounts does not build this discount type.
- Where it breaks: Shopify's discount form can't do several tiers in one discount, bundles made of several groups, or a choice of how items are counted. For those you need an app's discount types, and they come with longer forms of their own.
How to create a discount with the AI assistant
The AI doesn't set the discount values itself. It reads your sentence and finds the right products in your store. The app then builds the discount with fixed, tested code.
- Open the assistant in Hand-E AI Discounts and describe the discount in one sentence, for example: 5% off from 3 packs, 10% off from 6 packs on the Tea collection.
- The assistant looks up the Tea collection in your store and picks the discount type. If something is unclear, such as the currency of an amount, it asks.
- Check the complete suggestion: title, discount type, scope, counting mode and tiers.
- Confirm the suggestion with one click. Nothing is created in your store before that.
- The discount is created inactive and shows as expired in the admin. The success card shows the values Shopify saved. Click Switch on now there, and it applies, with no end date.
- If you've already left the card: under My discounts the discount shows as “Not active yet” with the same button, simple discounts and free shipping included.
- For another discount you write a new sentence. The assistant does not create two discounts in one go.
Example: from the sentence to a discount that calculates
Sentence: 5% off from 3 packs, 10% off from 6 packs on the Tea collection. Suggestion in this example: Volume tiers on the Tea collection, counting mode everything in scope together (all tea packs count together, whatever the flavor), two tiers. One pack costs $8.90, and the discount per pack is rounded down to the cent.
| Cart | Tier | Discount per pack | Total discount | To pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 packs, $17.80 | none | $0.00 | $0.00 | $17.80 |
| 4 packs, $35.60 | 5% | $0.44 | $1.76 | $33.84 |
| 7 packs, $62.30 | 10% | $0.89 | $6.23 | $56.07 |
Limits of the assistant
- How much the assistant creates depends on your plan: 10 discounts a month on Free, up to 20 requests a day from the Starter plan up.
- One discount per request. For two discounts you write two sentences.
- No Buy X get Y. You create that one in the Shopify form.
- Every discount starts out inactive and only applies once you switch it on: on the success card or later under My discounts, simple discounts and free shipping included.
- Check the suggestion as carefully as a form, above all which products it covers and how it counts items. A sentence such as from 5 items doesn't say whether to count per product or across everything.
- Whether the discount applies alongside others is something you set afterwards on Shopify's Combinations card.
Common questions
Does the AI assistant create discounts without my confirmation?
Does the AI write the discount settings itself?
Why does a discount from the assistant show as expired in the admin?
Which discount types can the AI assistant create?
Related problems
Multiple quantity breaks don't fit in one discount
In Shopify's discount form, you set one minimum purchase requirement with one value. So each discount has one threshold. For 10% off 5 or more items and 15% off 10 or more, you need two separate automatic discounts. Or you use an app that keeps every tier in one discount.
Read moreHundreds of unique discount codes are needed
One Shopify discount can carry many codes, and a store can have up to 20 million unique codes. Hand-E AI Discounts generates up to 1,000 codes per campaign on every plan, with your own prefix. It creates them as one Shopify discount and gives you a CSV file.
Read moreThe discount is set up but does not apply at checkout
Whether it is an automatic discount or a discount code, check two things first: the discount's own conditions and Shopify's rules for how discounts work together. These are combinations, minimum purchase requirements, customer eligibility, active dates and the limit of 25 active automatic discounts. Go through the points in order, then check the result with a test order.
Read more