Should You Show the Discount Code Field at Checkout?

The discount code box sits at the top of your order summary and asks every shopper a question: do you have a code? Most of them do not, and the question is not free to ask. This article covers what usability research says happens next, the small number of things Shopify actually lets you control about that field, and the better fix in most cases, which is running the offer so nobody needs a code at all.

What the code field does to a shopper who does not have a code#

Baymard Institute's research on checkout form fields found that promotional code fields are nearly universal: 70% of sites have them, and 35% of sites with promotional code fields display them by default. The interesting part is not the prevalence, it is what test subjects did when they hit the field. Baymard observed that most users would "at the very least pause briefly to consider the field," that some came to "a full stop to consider it and determine if they might be able to find a coupon code to fill in," and that some test subjects "left the site to search for promo codes."

That last behavior is the expensive one. A shopper who leaves checkout to search for a code lands on a coupon aggregator full of other stores' offers, finds codes that expired in 2023, and may or may not come back. Baymard's own recommendation on that page is to hide coupon fields behind a link, the way you would treat an optional field like "Address Line 2."

Put that next to the baseline. Baymard's cart abandonment list puts the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate at 70.22%, drawn from 50 different studies. In their survey of reasons, after excluding the 42% who were just browsing, the leaders are extra costs too high (40%), delivery too slow (20%), not trusting the site with card details (19%), being asked to create an account (18%), and a checkout process that was too long or complicated (17%). The coupon field is not on that list as a named reason, which is worth being honest about. The evidence against it is behavioral, from watching people use checkouts, not from self-reported abandonment surveys.

So the field is not a catastrophe. It is a small, avoidable tax on attention at the exact moment you want none, and the research on it is strong enough to act on.

What Shopify actually lets you change, and what it does not#

Here is the short version: Shopify gives you one documented display setting, and one structural lever that matters more.

The display setting is on mobile. By default, Shopify's checkout keeps the order summary and the discount code field in a collapsed section on mobile, so a customer has to tap to expand it. You can change that. Shopify's checkout style guide documents the "Always show discount code field" setting, which you reach from your admin at Settings > Checkout, then Edit on the configuration you want, then the sections sidebar, then the Order summary section. Turning it on displays the discount field above the collapsed order summary on one-page checkout, or expands the top order summary by default on three-page checkout.

Note the direction of that setting. Shopify's default is already the quieter option on mobile. The setting exists to make the field more prominent, which is what you want if you are mailing codes to a list and your customers keep missing the box. If your concern is the opposite, the default is already on your side, and there is no documented toggle to remove the field from checkout while you have live codes.

The structural lever is more useful. Shopify's discounts FAQ lists the factors that affect whether the discount code entry field displays to customers during checkout, and the first one is that you "must have at least 1 active discount codes available to your customers." The same list notes that checkouts created from a draft order invoice or link do not let customers apply codes themselves by default, that Shop Pay customers must log in before the field displays, and that third-party apps affecting pricing or checkout behavior can stop it from showing.

Read that first factor again. Whether the field is there is downstream of whether you have any active discount codes. That is the real control you have, and it is not a checkout setting at all. It is a decision about how you build your promotions.

One more constraint to keep in mind while you plan: Shopify's guide to managing discounts states that a 5 discount code limit per order applies to the total number of discounts, including those coming from shareable links.

The test: does your store need a code field at all?#

Work through these four questions for each live promotion. If you answer "no" to all of them, that promotion does not need a code.

• Does the shopper have to prove something you cannot check yourself? An affiliate relationship, a support-ticket apology, a trade show badge. Shopify can check cart contents, totals, customer tags and order history. It cannot check that someone met you at a conference.
• Do you need to attribute revenue to a specific channel or partner? One code per podcast, one per influencer, one per print insert. Codes are the cheapest attribution tool you have.
• Do you need per-customer control? A total usage cap or one use per customer is a code behavior.
• Is the offer secret? A win-back offer you do not want showing to everyone who lands on the homepage.

A storewide 15% weekend sale fails all four. So does free shipping over $75, a volume break at 10 units, and a spend tier at $150. Those are conditions on the cart, and Shopify can see the cart.

Run the offer automatically when the shopper has nothing to prove#

Shopify's documentation for automatic discounts describes them as discounts "that are automatically applied in the cart and at checkout when eligibility conditions are met," and notes that you can have a maximum of 25 active automatic discounts, a total that includes app-based discounts.

Moving a promotion from a code to an automatic discount changes three things at once. The shopper sees the saving in the cart before they commit, so the offer actually does its job of moving the order forward. Nobody has to remember or retype anything. And if that was your only live code, the checkout field has no reason to be there.

Twenty-five is a real ceiling if you run a lot of concurrent offers, so audit what is active before you convert everything. We covered the full trade-off, including combination behavior and when a code is genuinely better, in automatic discount vs discount code.

This is also where an app earns its place or does not. Shopify's built-in automatic discounts cover a flat percentage, a fixed amount, free shipping and buy X get Y. If your offer is a set of tiers rather than a single value, diex runs spend tiers and volume tiers as Shopify Functions, so Shopify applies them in the cart and at checkout with no code typed by the customer.

When a code is the right tool, hand it to the shopper#

If a promotion passed the test above, keep the code. Just stop making people hunt for it.

1. Use a shareable link instead of a bare code. From Discounts, open the discount, choose Promote, then "Get a shareable link." Shopify's managing discounts guide says the discount associated with the link or QR code "applies automatically to your customer's next checkout cart," and that each link can carry only a single discount and works only for active discounts. Discounts created by a third-party app cannot get a shareable link from the Shopify admin.
2. Put the link in the email, not just the code. Show the code as text so people recognize it on their statement, but make the button a shareable link so the typing is optional.
3. If you advertise a code on your storefront, make it copyable. A banner that names a code the shopper then has to retype at checkout is the code-hunting problem you created yourself. diex's storefront blocks include a promotion banner that can show a discount code with a copy button, inline or fixed, and dismissible.
4. Never advertise a code you cannot make easy. If the code is only in a print ad, accept that some people will mistype it and size the support load accordingly.

Decide with your own numbers, not the average#

Before you change anything, find out how much of your revenue currently depends on someone typing a code. Shopify's Sales by discount codes report groups sales by discount name and, per the docs, "helps you view how often your discount codes are applied." The report carries discount method, discount code, discount amount, orders and total sales, so you can separate automatic discounts from code redemptions. One caveat the docs flag: sales reflect only the line items the discount affected, and with combinable discounts the same order can appear on more than one row, so treat the order counts as your signal rather than summing sales.

Then ask where those redemptions came from. If almost every code on the report is one you emailed or printed on an insert, your code field is serving customers you deliberately sent there, and leaving it alone is correct. If you see a storewide code you only ever posted once, redeemed hundreds of times, that code is circulating on coupon sites, and the field at checkout is the doorway.

For example, say you did 1,000 orders last month and 180 of them used a code. If 150 of those used WELCOME10 from your signup popup, that is working as designed. If 30 used a storewide code from a one-off campaign that ended in March, you are paying 10% on orders that would have converted anyway, and the field is where that leak happens. Our walkthrough of the sales by discount codes report covers how to read it against your own promotion calendar.

What to change this week#

1. Open the Sales by discount codes report for the last 90 days and write down the share of orders that used a code, plus which codes they were.
2. Deactivate every code that has outlived its campaign. Each one you remove is one fewer reason for the checkout field to exist.
3. Pick your biggest condition-based promotion, the one keyed to cart contents or order total, and rebuild it as an automatic discount so it applies in the cart.
4. For every code you keep, generate a shareable link and use it in the email, SMS or ad that promotes the code.
5. Check your mobile checkout on a phone. If you want the field more visible because you mail codes often, turn on "Always show discount code field" under Settings > Checkout. If you do not, leave the default alone.