The Curious Case of the Disappearing Discount Code
Discount codes are everywhere.
Brian Walsh
7/17/20263 min read
Discount codes are everywhere.
Hotels offer them. Clothing retailers offer them. Software vendors, gaming websites, airlines and online retailers all seem eager to promise a percentage off if only you use the special code they’ve thoughtfully provided.
At least that’s what they want you to believe.
Which raises an interesting question. What is the real purpose of a discount code?
Is it to reward customer loyalty? Is it to encourage customers to complete a purchase? Is it a genuine incentive designed to attract new customers? Or is it simply a marketing tool designed to create the impression of a bargain while making redemption just difficult enough that many customers never actually benefit?
I suspect we’ve all experienced the same scenario.
You receive an email offering 10%, 15% or perhaps even 20% off. You note the code carefully and head off to the website, pleased with the prospect of saving a few euro. You browse the products, select what you want and add them to your basket.
At this point, you naturally start looking for somewhere to enter your discount code.
Nothing.
No problem, you think. It will probably appear during checkout.
You proceed to the next page. You review your basket contents. Still no sign of a discount code field.
You continue. Name, address, email address, phone number. Still nothing.
Perhaps the next page.
Delivery options. Still nothing.
You press on, increasingly concerned that you may have missed something. After all, every additional page makes it less attractive to go back and start searching again.
Then comes the payment screen.
You carefully enter your card number, expiry date and security code while simultaneously scanning every corner of the page looking for a discount code box that stubbornly refuses to reveal itself.
By now you’re committed. You’ve invested time. You’ve completed forms. You’ve entered personal details. Surely the discount field will appear on the next screen.
You click continue.
Congratulations. Your order has been successfully processed.
No discount applied.
No opportunity to enter the code.
No explanation.
Just a lingering suspicion that perhaps the discount was never intended to be quite as easy to claim as the marketing email suggested.
From a customer experience perspective, this is baffling.
If the objective of a discount code is to encourage a purchase, why make it difficult to redeem? If the goal is to reward loyalty, why introduce uncertainty and frustration into the process? If businesses genuinely want customers to take advantage of these offers, surely the most logical place for a discount code field is at the very beginning of the purchasing journey.
Imagine how different the experience would feel if customers could enter the code before they started the checkout process and immediately see the discount reflected in their basket. The saving would be visible. The value proposition would be clear. The customer would proceed with confidence, knowing exactly what they were paying and exactly what they were saving.
Instead, many websites turn discount redemption into a treasure hunt.
And treasure hunts are fun only when you’re expecting one.
The irony is that the financial value of the discount is often insignificant compared to the value of customer trust. A customer who successfully redeems a discount feels rewarded. A customer who spends ten minutes searching for where to enter a code feels manipulated.
One experience builds goodwill. The other builds friction.
And friction, as we often observe at UXY, rarely exists in isolation. It accumulates. It chips away at trust. It creates doubt. It leaves customers wondering whether the organisation is genuinely trying to help them or simply trying to create the appearance of generosity while quietly hoping that some customers won’t manage to claim the offer at all.
The solution is remarkably simple.
If a discount is genuine, make it visible.
If it is intended to reward customers, make it easy to redeem.
And if trust matters to your business, don’t hide the value you promised behind a maze of checkout screens.
Because customers remember how easy it was to buy from you. They also remember how hard it was to get the deal they were promised.
The UXY Insight
Every customer interaction communicates something.
When a business hides a discount code field deep within the checkout process, it sends a message. The message may not be intentional, but customers hear it nonetheless:
“We want you to know about the discount, but we’re not entirely sure we want you to use it.”
If a discount is genuine, make it visible. If it is intended to reward customers, make it easy to redeem. And if trust matters to your business, don’t hide it behind a maze of checkout screens.