The vet who hands out business cards.
She has no website, no newsletter and no Instagram channel. She has something better: people who believe her. When she recommends a feed, it gets bought. For that recommendation to reach you and be rewarded, she needs no link, only her code on a card.
From the card in the waiting room to the commission.
Five steps, four of which run without you.
What a card brings in.
An example with round numbers, so you can put your own in.
| Line item | Qty | Unit price | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Renal diet food 12 kg | 1 | €74.90 | €74.90 |
| Joint supplement | 2 | €24.50 | €49.00 |
| Voucher praxis-seeblick | 1 | − 10 % | − €12.39 |
And the practice? At a fixed amount of €5.00 per referred customer it is credited €5.00 once. If the same owner orders ten more times afterwards, that changes nothing, because follow-up orders are switched off. At a percentage rate of 5 percent it would be €5.58 on the net goods value, and on every order.
The code or the voucher on the card?
Both assign. The difference is whether the customer has a reason to type it in.
The partner code alone
It assigns, it changes nothing about the price. The customer types it in because they want to do the practice a favour, not because they get anything out of it.
Fits when the recommendation carries anyway and you do not want to give a discount.
The partner voucher
A real discount code for your shop that assigns on top. The customer saves, the practice earns, and both have a reason.
Fits almost always. Without an incentive, a code on a card is rarely typed in.
With the voucher you set the amount, the pattern for name and code, usage limits in total and per customer, and conditions from the Rule Builder. A voucher that only applies to pet food and at most once per customer is a matter of minutes.
Three things that make this case.
The field has to be open
Code entry in the cart is a setting you switch on. Without it only the link works, and the link is exactly what the practice does not have.
The partner needs no account
You create them in the administration. A partner who never orders themselves is the normal case in this constellation and explicitly provided for.
One-off or permanent
Absolute per order without follow-up orders rewards the referral. A percentage with follow-up orders shares in the revenue. That is a commercial decision, not a technical one.
Common questions
How can someone refer without a website?
Through their code alone. The partner code is not tied to a link: it sits on a business card, a flyer, a sticker, or is passed on by word of mouth. The customer types it into the cart or on the order confirmation themselves, and the order is assigned. The requirement is that you allow that entry in the configuration.
Where does the customer enter the code?
In the cart or on the order confirmation, in a field of its own. It only appears while the customer does not yet belong to a partner, and only the code of an active partner is accepted. So the poaching lock applies to this route as well: anyone already assigned to a partner cannot be moved across.
What is the difference between the partner code and the partner voucher?
The partner code only assigns, it changes nothing about the price. The partner voucher is a real discount code for your shop and assigns on top of that. For a business card the voucher is usually the better choice, because the customer has a reason to type it in: they save something.
Can a partner exist without ordering themselves?
Yes. You also create partners yourself in the administration, optionally partner and customer account in one go. For a practice, a workshop or a club that never buys from you, that is the usual route.
How high should the commission be for a referral like this?
That depends on what you want to reward. If every new customer referred should be worth the same, take an absolute amount per order and switch off follow-up orders: then there is a one-off fixed amount per referred customer, no matter how often they order afterwards. If the partner should share in the revenue permanently, take a percentage rate and let follow-up orders count.
Does the referrer get money or a voucher?
Whatever you allow, shop-wide and per partner. A practice that sends an invoice needs a payout. A club or a regular customer often prefers a voucher for your shop, especially if you add a bonus on top.
Does the partner see which customers they referred?
Only anonymised: first name, the initial of the surname and a town. You do not hand full customer data out. How many orders and customers are visible at all is a setting.
What happens if two partners refer the same customer?
The customer stays with the partner they came through first. The poaching lock is active out of the box and applies to link, voucher and code entry alike. Only if you explicitly allow poaching does the code named last count.
Other ways to turn customers into partners.
An influencer with a discount code
A voucher of their own as advertising material, paid out to the bank account instead of credit in the shop.
Read on → A coffee machine reviewComparison sites and blogs
Commission per product and category, so that thin margins do not bleed twice.
Read on → A partner with a VAT IDAn agency with an invoice
Business partners send invoices. The receipt and the net invoice have to match up.
Read on →Not every promoter has a website.
In the demo shop you can type the code into the cart yourself and watch what happens.