The Alternate Shipping Credit is a dollar-amount discount on shipping costs applied to an order when:
- Free shipping isn't available for the location the customer wants to ship to (such as a location outside of the contiguous United States); or
- The customer selects a shipping method that isn't eligible for free shipping.
If you don't want to offer a discount on shipping costs for either of these cases, leave the Alternate Shipping Credit field blank.
Example scenario
Your coupon offer is for free ground shipping (5-7 days), and includes an Alternate Shipping Credit of $5.00 for shipping methods that aren't ground shipping. During checkout, the customer selects 2-day shipping. In this case, $5.00 would be discounted from the order subtotal.
Since the Alternate Shipping Credit is deducted from the order subtotal, it's important to include all free shipping methods set up for your store in this coupon offer, to prevent the Alternate Shipping Credit from being applied as an additional order discount. For example, if you have a special holiday free shipping rate that you've created specifically for the holiday season, this shipping method should also be included in your coupon offer. If it's not, a customer could select holiday free shipping during checkout, enter the coupon code, and receive the Alternate Shipping Credit as an order discount.
The Alternate Shipping Credit is only available when you create a coupon for free shipping. It's not available when creating a coupon for other types of discounts.
