(logical problem)assigning couponids to members?

phpsharma

Hi,

I need a logical solution to my problem. I have a site with products and registered shopers. I am getting discount coupons from manufactrures database. So i need to assign the coupons equally among registered users. can any one pushup my idea.

SCENARIO:
my users are in a table with username, email

manufactures will sent coupons information via form(which is their site)coupons contains couponid,coupon amount etc..

My problem is: assigning all coupons (lets say 100) to all registered users(lets say 20) evenly. how can be the logic would be?

My thoughts:
1)Taking username randomly from table at my end and assigning the couponid. but how did i know who is getting how many?.

2)i thought of assigning couponid's sequentially to my usernames table. Then loop the process for further coupons.but how can i know all users are completed ?

I am missing some thing. please help.

sharma

paulnaj

Hi phpsharma,

Just to get this straight.

Manufacturers give away, say, 100 coupons, and it is up to you who, out of your table of (20, say) customers, is going to get the coupons.

You want that ideally all 20 customers receive roughly the same amount of coupons.

If all that's correct, then what about keeping a 'numCouponsReceived' field in the customers table. Then, when it comes round to dishing out a new batch, you first list the customers ...

SELECT * FROM customers
ORDER BY numCouponsReceived ASC

... to get the customers in order. Use this list to send the coupons and update numCouponsReceived for each customer that recieves a coupon ...

UPDATE customers
SET numCouponsReceived = numCouponsReceived +1
WHERE customerid = 1

Hope that helps!

Paul.

benandkelley

I know some people who will try different variations to guess coupon codes and get discounts.

On one of my sites I have a table that maps the coupon code to the user account , so that a person needs to 1) have the coupon code, and 2) have that coupon linked to their name within my db.

i do this more for my own coupon system rather than for a distributor's coupon. This way I don't give away too much discount to my customers (example: one person uses twenty $5 coupons, then the automated transaction system give them money rather than accepting money)

good luck.

-Ben

phpsharma

I will try to implement your ideas