For Mother’s Day, give free Standard shipping and $10 off Express when the cart holds something from your gift collection, and schedule it separately for each country, because the day isn’t the same everywhere. Shopify’s own free shipping discount can’t check what’s in the cart and makes every eligible rate free. RM: Advanced Free Shipping checks for a collection, limits the offer by shipping country, discounts the rates you pick, and switches on and off by date. It costs $9.90 USD every 30 days, with a 7-day free trial, billed by Shopify.

When is Mother’s Day?

  • United States and Australia: the second Sunday in May.
  • United Kingdom: Mothering Sunday, in March or April. It moves with Easter.

Other countries have their own dates. Check each market you ship to.

The offer

  • Free Standard shipping when the cart contains anything from the “Mother’s Day Gifts” collection and is $40 or more, before discounts.
  • $10 off Express on the same carts, so late gifts still arrive.
  • Discount A for the US and Australia, Discount B for the UK, each with its own dates.

What customers pay

In this example, the store’s rates are Standard at $7.95 and Express at $16.95. A code, MOM15, takes 15% off products.

  • $55 cart with a candle from Mother’s Day Gifts: Standard shows $7.95 Free, and Express shows $16.95 $6.95. With Standard, the customer pays $55.00.
  • Same cart with MOM15: products come to $46.75. The cart was $55 before the code, so it still qualifies. With Standard, the customer pays $46.75.
  • $55 cart with nothing from the collection: no discount. With Standard, the customer pays $62.95.

Set up Discount A: US and Australia

  1. Click Create Shipping Discount and choose Automatic discount under Discount method. Use a Title such as “Free Mother’s Day shipping”.
  2. Under Conditions, add Product collection Contains (any) Mother’s Day Gifts.
  3. Click Add condition and add Cart subtotal Is at least 40.
  4. Add Shipping country Is one of United States, Australia.
  5. Under Discount setup, choose Shipping, Choose specific rates, pick Standard, and set Discount value to Free.
  6. In the ⋯ menu on Discount setup, choose Add delivery discount. Pick Express and set Fixed Amount Off 10.

All three conditions sit in one rule group, so every one must pass. Amounts convert to the customer’s currency at checkout.

Set up Discount B: UK Mothering Sunday

Repeat the steps with Shipping country Is one of United Kingdom and the Mothering Sunday dates. Each discount runs on its own schedule.

Test before it starts

Shopify doesn’t run a discount before its start date, so test first and schedule after:

The Test mode card in RM: Advanced Free Shipping switched on, with How to test steps: save with Test mode on, add items and go to checkout, enter ABC123 as the customer's first name, update the postcode or ZIP to refresh rates, then turn Test mode off

  1. Create each discount with Test mode on and the Start date set to now.
  2. At checkout, enter ABC123 as the shipping first name. Try carts with and without a gift item, at $39 and $40, to a US address and then a UK address.
  3. Under Active dates, set the real Start date. Tick Set end date and choose your last safe ship date at 11:59 PM.
  4. Turn off Test mode and save. The dashboard shows Scheduled until each one starts.

Times use your store’s timezone. Australia’s Sunday starts hours before the US one, so split Discount A in two if timing matters.

Make your gift codes work with it

Both discounts must allow combining. Your shipping discount combines with Product discounts and Order discounts by default. Open MOM15 in Shopify admin and tick Shipping discounts under Combinations. Because the threshold uses Cart subtotal, the code can’t push a cart under $40. Cart total would measure it after discounts.

Variations

  • Free Express in the last few days. Add a discount for Express only, Free, starting after your Standard cut-off. Shopify gives the customer the bigger shipping discount on a rate, so Express goes free. See tiered shipping discounts.
  • Gift items tagged, not collected. Make a smart collection on the tag and use it in Product collection.

RM: Advanced Free Shipping is Built for Shopify and rated 5.0 on the Shopify App Store. It costs $9.90 USD every 30 days after a 7-day free trial, billed by Shopify. Install it from the Shopify App Store.