Glossary
What is a voucher?
A voucher is something a customer holds and can use at the business that gave it to them. It is the thing in their hand. An offer is what they bought, and a promotion is a rule that fired automatically. Any of those can end up as a voucher.
If you remember one distinction from this glossary, make it this one.
Offer, promotion, voucher
These three words get used interchangeably and they mean quite different things:
- An offer is a thing a customer buys. It is merchandise.
- A promotion is a rule that fires at scan time, without anyone buying anything.
- A voucher is the entitlement a customer holds afterwards. It is the outcome, not the mechanism.
Buying an offer produces a voucher. So can a promotion, and so can a gift from another customer. The voucher does not carry a memory of which route produced it, beyond what its own rules record.
Redeeming
A voucher is redeemed at the business that published it, under the status, expiry and usage limits that business set.