Status: These are notes by Ian Jacobs regarding coupon acquire and redeem capabilities for the Web. They don't reflect any consensus. They are intended to foster discussion. Questions? ij@w3.org.

There are opportunities to improve the use of digital coupons on the Web, by making it easier for users to acquire ("clip") and redeem coupons. Standards should make it easier for coupon issuers to distribute coupons that are published (e.g., in ads on Web pages), easier for merchants to accept coupons from multiple issuers at lower integration cost (whatever the underlying coupon data standard), and easier for users to track and redeem coupons at multiple merchants.

Problem Statements

• People browse the Web but cannot, today, acquire coupons that can be easily managed and redeemed while shopping online.
  • eMarketer: "Retailers can attest that the biggest hurdle for uptake is getting digital coupons in front of consumers."
  • 2017 Inmar Promotion Industry Analysis via couponsinthenews: Coupon usage is falling. 63% of survey respondents said “my coupons expire before I have a chance to use them” and “I can’t find coupons for the products that I want to buy,” while 48% said “it takes too much time to find coupons”.
• While the Web enables brands to advertise their products, there is no open loop system that enables brands to distribute coupons to customers that may be redeemed at arbitrary (participating) merchants.
• Merchants are having mixed results with native app solutions; Web interoperability should facilitate merchant access to investments by brands.
• Another issue seems to be incompatibility between in-store coupon systems and online coupon systems, even for the same company.

Opportunity

• Digital coupon redemption is growing
  • Juniper Research: "[...] Juniper Research has found that the value of digital coupon redemptions will surge to $91 billion by 2022, up from $47 billion in 2017."
• Juniper Research: "Additionally, technologies which streamline the shopping experience, such as invisible payments, or provide additional information and linked offers, such as with QR codes, will greatly enhance the in-store experience, driving footfall for physical retailers."
• Create a streamlined user experience for acquiring and redeeming digital coupons.
• Enable interoperability between coupon distributors and merchants, so that the user can acquire coupons easily via the Web from a variety of distributors, and redeem them at a variety of (participating) merchants.

Roles

• Coupon app. An application (the browser or third party application) that provides the capabilities listed in this document. If implemented in a third party application, we will need to define an API for browser/coupon app registration and communication.
• User. The user uses one or more coupon apps to manage coupons.
• Merchant
• Browser
• Coupon distribution service. Coupon distributors make coupons available to merchants and users.
• Coupon validation service

Note: Modeling based in part on Towards Interoperability in Mobile Coupons: Enabling Cross Retailer Coupon Validation. There are suggestions that we align terminology with GS1 terminology.

Capabilities

Publish

• Web sites request coupons from one or more coupon distribution service.
  • These may be published in Web ads or in other contexts.
  • They may be customized based on user identity.
  • These could be merchant Web sites, coupon aggregation sites, search engine results pages, or any other Web page.

Acquire

• Coupons acquired by the user while browsing are stored in a coupon app.
  • The user manages stored coupons (add, remove, redeem, validate) through the coupon app.

Validate

• A validation service can be invoked at a variety of times, including:
  • By the merchant at various times, when receiving information from the user about selected coupons.
  • By the coupon app at various times, including when the user acquires a coupon, when the user choose to redeem a coupon, and after a transaction (e.g., at which point it may no longer be usable).

Redeem

• While shopping, the user may receive information about merchant-accepted coupons.
  • We will need to consider what form of user consent is required before the user receives notifications about available coupons.
• The browser communicates that information to coupon app(s).
• Coupon apps present information to the user about opportunities to redeem matching (applicable) coupons. One can imagine multiple times when the user might receive that information, including:
  • When visiting a page with information about a product, but before the product has been added to a shopping cart.
  • Upon adding an item to a shopping cart
  • When finalizing the shopping cart prior to payment.
• Through the coupon app interface, the user indicates which coupons are to be redeemed.
  • The merchant might invoke the validation service here.
• The merchant adjusts the cart / line items / total based on coupons to be redeemed.
• The user initiates payment (i.e., Payment Request API).
  • Various states are possible after payment, including success, failure, and unknown.

NOTE: This redemption sequence assumes interaction with the user's stored coupons. It is of course possible for the merchant to present other coupons to the user while the user is browsing the site.

Reconcile

• The set of stored coupons is (potentially) changed as a result of the transaction (e.g., coupons are marked as used, or removed once used).
• The coupon app interacts with the coupon distribution service asynchronously to update the user's stored coupons.
  • The coupon app is likely to validate coupons after a transaction.

Scope

In Scope

• Browser capability related to user acquiring of coupons.
• Browser capability related to user redemption of coupons.

Out of Scope

• Coupon format. This is likely to be standardized outside W3C. The architecture should also support different formats.
• Coupon storage mechanics. For the capabilities envisioned, is an implementation detail where and how coupons are stored.
• Coupon validation. This is assumed to be a backend service.
• Coupon policy management. This is assumed to be managed elsewhere (whether in a user app or on the server).
• Coupon settlement. This is assumed to be a backend service.

Notes

Search

• One can imagine user-stored coupon data facilitating search: "Find me a (nearby) merchant that accepts this coupon"

Ideas for building this out

• Add flow diagrams
• Start to experiment with pseudo-code