Guide · October 2026 · 6 min read
"Buy one, get one free" is the oldest promotion in retail because it still works: free is a word shoppers understand instantly, and BOGO asks for a bigger basket without feeling like a discount maze. On Wix there are two honest ways to run one — a coupon and a bundle product — plus a third, zero-risk place to put it that most stores never consider.
(We're the makers of CartRise, a post-purchase offers app for Wix — coupons are our raw material, so we've run into every edge below ourselves.)
Pick one per campaign. A BOGO that's also percentage-off, also free-shipping, also seasonal, is four campaigns nobody can reason about — including you, when the margin report arrives.
The simpler, always-visible route: create a "2-pack" as its own product priced so the second unit is effectively free or half price. The deal needs no code, can't be mistyped, shows up in search and collections like any product, and the margin is baked into the price you set.
Run the math before you launch: BOGO free on a product with a 50% margin means your entire margin on the first unit pays for the second. The deal only makes sense when the extra order volume (or the new customer it brings) earns that back — or when your markup is comfortably above 50%. BOGO half needs roughly a third of that headroom. Write the two numbers down; future-you will thank present-you.
Both routes above share one weakness: they live before checkout, where every added decision risks the original sale. The alternative is a one-time BOGO-style offer on the thank-you page: the shopper just paid for the candle, and the offer says the second one is free with their next order — code already copied. There's no cart to abandon, no checkout to slow, and no way the promotion costs you the first sale.
That's the moment CartRise works in: one-time post-purchase offers in your store's own design, with revenue counted only when the code is redeemed on a real paid order. The strategy behind it is in the post-purchase offers guide.
It depends how you scope the deal. The buy X get Y coupon lets you define which product qualifies and which product is discounted, so you can do two of the same item or a pairing of two different ones. The bundle-product route makes the pairing explicit — one product that already contains both.
BOGO usually wins on psychology: "get one free" is concrete and feels like a gift, while "50% off if you buy two" reads as arithmetic. BOGO also tends to protect margin better on products with healthy markup, because the discount applies to one unit, not the whole pair. Test both if you can — but never run both at once.
Cap the coupon's total redemptions, set validity dates for the campaign, and check the discounted-item logic so the deal can't be applied to items you didn't intend. For an ongoing bundle, the bundle-product route sidesteps abuse entirely — the deal only exists as that product.
Yes — and it's the zero-risk version. A one-time BOGO-style offer on the thank-you page (buy the candle again, get the second free) can't cost you the original order, because payment is already complete. That's the moment post-purchase offer apps like CartRise work in.
Related: how to create a discount code in Wix → · how to increase average order value on Wix →