If there’s one thing that every customer likes it’s a freebie. Offering WooCommerce free gift products shows customer appreciation and can keep shoppers coming back to your store. Likewise, the more repeat customers you can secure, the more revenue you’ll bring in.
In this article, we’re going to show you how to give away free products in WooCommerce. We’ll use the base plugin and we’ll also how over how to create WooCommerce free gift product coupons. Let’s get to it!
Method 1: Set the Product’s Price to Zero in WooCommerce
The easiest way to give away a product for free using WooCommerce is to set its price to zero dollars. As a result, customers will be able to add that product to their carts, go through the checkout process, and receive it, all without paying a cent.
Setting a product’s price to zero should only take a few seconds. Go to the Products tab in your dashboard and look for the item that you want to give away. Then select the Edit option under its name. On the next screen, you can set its price to zero by going to Product data > General:
One issue with this approach is that setting a product’s price to zero may look like an error on your end. Unless you explicitly tell visitors that you’re giving away that product for free, a lot of them might not even notice it.
An alternative to this approach is to keep that product’s default price as normal and set its Sale price to zero instead. That way, it becomes obvious that you’re offering a WooCommerce free gift product.
If you set a product’s price to zero in WooCommerce, then it’s essential that you keep an eye on how many customers take you up on your offer. You might only want to give away a few items for free or some customers might want to take advantage and order up the entire stock of freebies.
The best way to protect yourself against customers abusing your WooCommerce free products is to opt for a different implementation. That’s where Advanced Coupons comes in.
Method 2: Use Advanced Coupons to Offer WooCommerce Free Gift Products for Other Purchases
Using Advanced Coupons, you have a lot more control over the types of offers that you can give customers access to. With this plugin, you can create coupons that offer 100% discounts for specific products. It even enables coupons to automatically add free products to customer carts when they use them.
Moreover, you can design these WooCommerce free gift product coupons to work only under specific circumstances. For example, you can offer customers that buy over $50 worth of products in a single purchase a freebie to sweeten the deal.
To do so, you’ll need the premium Advanced Coupons plugin, which includes an advanced ‘cart conditions’ system. Using that system, you’ll be able to create coupons that only work for customers whose carts meet specific criteria.
Once you purchase and activate the plugin, go ahead and create a new coupon by going to Coupons > Add New. Generate a code for the coupon and scroll down to the Coupon data section. Now jump to the Add Products tab and click on Add Product:
Select the product that you want the coupon to add using the search bar to the left and select a percentage-based discount for it. Set that discount’s value to 100% and finish adding the product to the coupon:
You’ll notice that you get to select how many of an item the coupon will add to customers’ carts. By default, one freebie is a good option. However, you can also create coupons that add multiple free items and even different products at once.
For now, let’s worry about cart conditions. As it stands now, anyone would be able to take advantage of your freebie offer. To fix that, scroll down to Cart Conditions and select the Cart Subtotal option under IF…:
Now set the cart subtotal value that you want customers to meet and save the rule. For example, if you only want customers who spend over $50 to be able to apply the coupon, here’s what that would look like:
If you save the coupon now, it will work perfectly. However, one caveat is that you’ll need to inform customers about your offer, be it through your website or a mailing list. A better alternative might be to enable auto-apply for your WooCommerce free gift product coupon.
Using that, the coupon will automatically apply to any orders for any customers that meet the cart conditions you configured. To prevent coupon abuse, we also recommend that you limit its usage to one application per customer.
Conclusion
Giving away WooCommerce free gift products is easier than you might imagine. If you use the base WooCommerce plugin, you can set any item’s price to zero and sit back while customers add it to their carts and get their freebies.
The problem with that approach is that it doesn’t incentivize users to purchase additional products. To do that, we recommend that you use the Advanced Coupons plugin. With it, you’ll be able to create coupons that add WooCommerce free gift products to customer carts if they meet specific purchase criteria.
Do you have any questions about how to give away WooCommerce free gift products? Let’s talk about them in the comments section below!
Author, thanks for the clarity you have given to this confusing issue. I intend to deploy a Woocommerce App for products which shall be given out for FREE at all times (FOREVER) with the condition that no Customer gets more than one item within a MONTH.
Can you recommend any Woocommerce App for this?
Hi Anthony,
Yes you can do this with Advanced Coupons. Apply the deal as per the above guide, then also add a usage restriction of 1 per customer. If you’re using Advanced Coupons Premium you can also have this reset automatically every month (or on whatever period you like) so they can use it again.