Optizio leveraged Shopify Functions to build their custom discounting app, Discount Kit. Learn more about their development process and how they are empowering retailers worldwide to expand by delivering discounts tailored to their unique needs.
As Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) looms, retailers face mounting pressure to create standout promotional strategies. At the same time, buyer expectations for seamless shopping experiences across channels is at an all-time high. In this high-stakes environment, brands need a flexible way to provide discounts that delight customers and incentivize them to keep coming back.
With Shopify’s Discount Functions, app developers now have the power to build custom apps for the Online Store and POS that extend or replace native Shopify server-side logic and offer more advanced discounting capabilities to Shopify merchants. This gives them the ability to deliver discount experiences that meet their unique business needs and helps drive more sales both in-store and online.
In this blog, we’ll share how Optizio, a software development agency that specializes in developing applications for the Shopify App Store, has taken advantage of Discount Functions to build their powerful custom discounting app, Discount Kit. We’ll also share how their customers are using it to overcome challenges they’ve faced with discounts in the past and how it’s helping them grow their businesses.
Custom discounting is a challenge for omnichannel retailers
Managing dynamic, personalized discounts without creating too much extra work for staff members is a struggle for many retailers. Craft Supplies USA, a family owned-and-operated woodturning business founded in 1982, is no exception. Don Dafoe is the Marketing Manager at the company, and implementing discount strategies across the company’s online and physical retail sales channels are among his key priorities. But it wasn’t always easy finding the right tools to help him deliver discounts the way he wanted to.
"We do a lot of volume discounting to encourage customers to order multiple items together, such as pen kits and pen blanks,” says Don. But if one of those items was also being featured in a promotion, it could cause discount “double dipping,” or applying two discounts to the same order, which quickly eroded profit margins.
“If we didn’t manually disable a promo price on an item and a customer bought enough to qualify for a volume discount, then we would be selling it for much less than we intended because both discounts would apply.”
— Don Dafoe, Marketing Manager, Craft Supplies USA
The need to manually turn off specific discounts to avoid double dipping was an ongoing headache for the team, and Don looked into various potential solutions. But the apps he tested led to an even worse experience for customers and staff. “They created a new discount code for every cart total, which led to thousands of discount codes cluttering the system and slowing transactions down,” he says.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Brewed, a coffee shop in North London with a thriving online store offering artisan beans, coffee equipment, and more, has faced similar hurdles. The brand runs a membership club where customers can pay a monthly fee to get store credit that can be applied in-store or online. The credit allows for products to be purchased at a discount. But Brewed has had a hard time managing the various discount rates for different products, and they risked selling certain items at a loss if discounts were applied incorrectly.
“The margins on our products vary widely, so we couldn’t just apply an automatic, blanket discount. I needed an easy way to align lots of different discounts and a solution that could look at the margins of each item in the cart and ensure each one was properly discounted.”
— Bob Sharples, Owner, Brewed
Bob says the apps he initially tested to help him meet his needs fell short of expectations. “I was constantly looking to improve the way we handled discounts and store credits. But the discount tools we tested out were always slow and clunky.”
As Brewed and Craft Supplies USA can attest, finding a flexible discounting tool that works seamlessly across all sales channels can be challenging. Both retailers needed a solution that would quickly and easily provide the right discount at the right time to their customers, regardless of whether they were shopping online or in-store. For reasons like these, the custom discounting capabilities enabled by Shopify Discount Functions was a game-changer.
Shopify Discount Functions on POS enable discount flexibility
Launched in 2022 for the Online Store, Shopify Functions are now also supported on POS, thus extending Shopify’s omnichannel discounting capabilities. Developers can create apps that leverage Discount Functions to offer custom discount logic that goes beyond Shopify's native offerings, and these apps can be downloaded through the Shopify App Store. Once an app that delivers discounts created through Discount Functions is installed, merchants can access and configure these custom discounts directly in their Shopify admin without having to write a line of code.
Shopify Functions’ easy development process allows for a flexible ecosystem of discount apps, each offering unique features and capabilities. Merchants can choose the app that best fits their needs, whether it's for everyday promotions or complex holiday discount strategies.
Four unique features distinguish Shopify Discount Functions on POS:
- Lightning-fast execution (under 5ms)
- Seamless integration across all sales channels
- Scalability for major sales events
- No coding required for merchants
Optizio provides merchants the discount capabilities they’ve been searching for
Sammy Isseyegh and Dave Spanton are the co-founders of Optizio, a software development agency that specializes in developing applications for the Shopify App Store. After seeing success with an app called Stackable Discounts, which allowed merchants to apply multiple discounts to their orders, they recognized the potential to provide even more advanced discounting capabilities — including custom discounts for POS — by developing an app using Shopify Functions.
“When Shopify Functions was released, we saw a great opportunity to build upon what we’d learned from our experience building Stackable. We knew what merchants wanted to do, and we had an intimate understanding of what was and wasn’t possible with Shopify’s native discount features. So we felt well-positioned to take advantage of Shopify Functions, specifically Discount Functions.”
— Sammy Isseyegh, Co-founder, Optizio
With a clear understanding of the problems they wanted to solve for merchants and a high level of excitement to build something new using Discount Functions, Sammy and Dave began developing Discount Kit.
The birth of Discount Kit and how they built it
Since it was built with Shopify Functions, Discount Kit sets itself apart from other discounting apps with the ease in which merchants can configure advanced discounts directly through the Shopify admin. This differs from discounts via App Bridge / Shopify POS UI Extensions, which are leveraged to create apps that live on the POS.
Sammy notes that Discount Kit is meant to serve a very specific purpose, saying, “Discount Kit is a discounting platform. The main purpose is to provide advanced, complex discounting rules for any sales channel. It’s built for merchants that want a level above what Shopify’s native discount features allow.”
He shares an example of a personalized discount that Discount Kit makes possible, saying, “If a merchant wants to do customer-specific automatic discounts, they could achieve that with Discount Kit.” He says that he and Dave are driven by the ability to help merchants grow their brands by helping them boost results in areas that matter most. “We’re really focused on giving merchants the tools to increase their average order value (AOV), conversion rates, and other metrics they care about, by offering sophisticated discounting tools.”
Discount Kit allows merchants to:
- Create complex, personalized discounts
- Choose from multiple discount types specifically crafted to boost key sales metrics
- View all marketing data centrally via Shopify’s native analytics and reports
- Stack combinable discounts on POS and online
- Automatically apply discounts without manual intervention
- Create flexible rules for varied discounts across product ranges
Sammy and Dave share that they’ve had a largely positive experience with the development and deployment process with Discount Functions on POS. “To be quite honest, building was very simple because it basically worked out of the box,” says Sammy. Dave credits much of this simplicity to the fact that “We don’t need to create much of the foundational tech since the discount functions are built on top of the existing Shopify functionality. It’s a more efficient process.”
Dave adds that some of the most common merchant feedback they’ve received relates to Discount Kit’s speed and efficiency, saying, “Quite a few people have told us the speed of the discount workflow is so much faster now. Even if they used an app that gave them capabilities beyond Shopify’s native discount functionality before, they generally all had to use some sort of a tile or other workaround. So the fact that everything with Discount Kit is just instant and automatic has made people very happy.”
Discount Kit delivers results through seamless discounts
Discount Kit helped Craft Supplies USA deliver the strategic discounts they wanted while making the team’s jobs easier at the same time. Don first came across the app in the Shopify App Store. He says the “Built for Shopify” tag next to the app caught his eye, and he decided to give it a try. As he began testing it out, he quickly realized how Discount Kit was the solution he’d been looking for.
“Discount Kit pretty much checked all the boxes for us. When we have a product go on sale, we can make volume discounts automatically go away. We don’t have to remove the discounts manually, product by product, like we did before to prevent double dipping. With Discount Kit, we just click a little check box when we set up the discount. The ability to just ‘set it and forget it’ saves us a huge amount of work.”
— Don Dafoe, Marketing Manager, Craft Supplies USA
In addition to relieving the stress related to double dipping on discounts, Don says Optizio was highly responsive to their feedback as they began using Discount Kit. “We reached out to the developers to let them know about some of our future plans and how adding some additional discount features would be really powerful,” says Don. “They actually made the changes for us, which was huge. Overall, we’ve been really impressed with the performance. Everything works seamlessly and we haven’t seen any errors once the rules are set up.”
Brewed has enjoyed similar success with Discount Kit, and Bob also appreciated that it was built specifically with Shopify merchants in mind. "Discount Kit jumped out because it was based on the new discount API that Shopify built,” he says. “I knew I needed something with the ability to integrate with Shopify’s native tools and allow for automatic discounts online and in-store.” His intuition about Discount Kit being the right fit for his needs were quickly proven correct.
“We’re heavily focused on the speed of service in the coffee shop because it’s a fast-paced environment, and we don’t want to keep people waiting. It used to take us maybe a minute to apply discounts for our members. But now we use the automatic discount on Shopify POS which are governed by Discount Kit. It’s much more accurate and I don’t really have to do any work.”
— Bob Sharples, Owner, Brewed
Bob explains how Discount Kit helped Brewed overcome the challenges they faced when discounting products with different margins, saying, “We set up our discounts based on collections. So when we add new products to a collection, I have a dropdown metafield where I add the percentage off, and that sorts it into a collection. Discount Kit picks up on that and then assigns the right discount to the item.” He adds that he’s used these capabilities to boost membership and loyalty with in-store customers. “All the labels we use in the shop have that metafield printed on the barcode label so members can see what discount they get. That transparency in our discount structure has helped us triple our monthly new member sign-ups since we started using Discount Kit.”
Optizio sees continued growth with Shopify partnership
As their customers continue to reap the benefits of Discount Kit, Optizio is looking ahead to expand their impact and reach with merchants around the world. Their partnership with Shopify has proven to be a significant catalyst for growth. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship with both sides boosting engagement with retailers who are interested in finding improved ways to execute on their discount strategy.
“We’ve seen increasing interest, especially after a recent lunch and learn we conducted with one of Shopify’s retail sales teams,” says Sammy. “This collaboration has already led to several sales calls with customers who are eager to explore what they can achieve with Discount Kit. This kind of support and collaboration from Shopify helps us reach more merchants and demonstrate the value of our app.”
From daily sales to BFCM: Shopify helps omnichannel retailers thrive
The future of retail is fast-paced, flexible, and customer-centric. To stand out in this increasingly competitive landscape, retailers need the right tools to keep ahead of customer expectations and grow loyalty to their brands. Apps built with Shopify Discount Functions on POS are helping omnichannel retailers meet these goals and be well-prepared for those “make or break” moments like the holiday shopping season and BFCM. For these reasons, it’s no wonder that forward-thinking developers like Optizio choose to build for the Shopify app ecosystem.
