What "discount on the cheapest item" means
With this type of discount, the percentage does not apply to the whole order, only to the lowest-priced item in your basket. If you add several items at different prices, the system automatically picks out the cheapest one and takes the discount off that. Every other item stays at full price.
That makes this promotion clearly different from an ordinary percentage discount on the whole basket, where every item benefits equally.
Why shops limit the discount in this way
From a shop's point of view, this rule caps how much the discount can cost on any one order, no matter how many items are in the basket or how expensive they are. The opposite would be a discount on the most expensive item, which usually works out better for you, but also costs the shop more.
A discount on the cheapest item is therefore one of the cheaper options for the shop. That does not make it worthless to you; it simply turns out smaller than other setups with the same percentage.
Where this type of discount usually turns up
You often see discounts on the cheapest item in promotions designed to get you to buy several different products at once, for example in categories with lots of small items sold individually, or with sets you put together yourself. The wording is then often something like "buy three, get 20 percent off the cheapest", and it usually only shows up in the basket once there are enough items in it.
For a shop, this is a way to encourage people to buy several items without the promotion leading to an unpredictably large discount when baskets contain items at very different prices. For you, it is most worthwhile when you were planning to buy several similarly priced items from the same category anyway.
A worked example with three items
Say you put three items in your basket: one for 30 euros, one for 20 euros and one for 10 euros, 60 euros in total. The promotion promises 20 percent off the cheapest item. Here the cheapest is the 10-euro item, and 20 percent off that is 2 euros. The total drops from 60 to 58 euros.
If the same discount applied to the most expensive item instead, the saving would be 20 percent of 30 euros, which is 6 euros, and the total would be 54 euros. With the same percentage, the difference between the two versions can be several euros, depending on how far apart the prices of the items in your basket are.
How the mix in your basket affects the saving
The bigger the price gap between the items in your basket, the smaller the saving from a discount on the cheapest item is relative to the total, because the discount always applies to the lowest single price, however high the other prices are.
If, on the other hand, you put several similarly priced items in your basket, the actual saving comes closer to what a discount on any one item would give you, because the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive item is smaller. So if you want to make deliberate use of this type of discount, you benefit most when the items in your basket are priced similarly.
When you add another item
If you add another, even cheaper item to your basket, the reference point of the promotion shifts immediately. With the three items at 30, 20 and 10 euros from above, an extra item for 5 euros would mean the 20 percent now applies to those 5 euros, saving you only 1 euro instead of the 2 euros on the previous cheapest item. The order total goes up because of the extra item, but the saving from the promotion goes down at the same time.
That seems illogical at first glance, but it follows directly from the rule that the discount always recalculates against whichever item is currently the cheapest in the basket. If you want to use this promotion, you should therefore not throw in extra, very cheap items just to reach a minimum spend or a required number of items, because that is exactly what can shrink the actual saving again.
What to check before you pay
- Read whether the discount applies to the cheapest, the most expensive or any item before you put your basket together.
- Check in the basket exactly how much has been deducted instead of relying only on the advertised percentage.
- Bear in mind that a high percentage on a cheap item often amounts to very little in actual money, even if the number itself looks big.
- Where the prices of your items differ a lot, compare whether a different, ordinary discount would be worth more overall.
We explain how several discounts can be combined in one order in our article on combining discounts. How a discount scale based on quantity works is covered in the article tiered discounts explained. How buy one get one free offers work out mathematically is explained in the article working out buy one get one free deals. You can read more about minimum order values and exclusions for vouchers in the article minimum spend, exclusions and combining codes.
Frequently asked questions
With three items, is the cheapest one discounted automatically?
Yes, if that is how the promotion is set up. The system automatically compares the prices in the basket and applies the discount to the lowest single price, without you having to choose it yourself.
Can I influence which item counts as the "cheapest"?
Only indirectly, by changing what is in your basket. The comparison is always based on the actual individual prices of the items currently in the basket.
Why is a discount on the most expensive item better for me?
Because, with the same percentage, the amount deducted is higher. A discount on the cheapest item, by contrast, limits from the outset how much the discount can be worth at most.
Is this type of discount worth it with only one item in the basket?
Many of these promotions require several items. If it applies from a single item, there is no difference from an ordinary discount, because that one item is automatically the cheapest.
