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Quantity Discounts (Tiered Pricing)

Overview

ProductCart allows you to associate tiered prices with any of your products. In other words, you can charge your customers different prices for different quantity levels. The price can also vary depending on whether the buyer is a retail or wholesale customer. You can create unlimited quantity discount tiers for each product in your product catalog. You can define quantity discounts at two different levels.

An icon next to the product name notifies customers that quantity discounts are available on that product (the same is true when you browse by category, for category-level quantity discounts). Clicking on the icon shows the discount tiers.

The pricing tiers are also shown on the product details page.
 
Quantity discounts at the product level

When you define quantity discounts at the product level, the discounts only apply to the instance of the product purchased by the customer, and not to any other related product. For example, if a customer purchased 10 different CD’s on a music store (one copy of each CD) and discounts were defined at the product level for those 10 products, with the first discount tier starting at 5 units (e.g. 10% off from 5 to 20 units), the customer would not receive any discount on the purchase. The customer would only receive quantity discounts on the order if he were to purchase 5 or more units of the same music CD. Therefore, use Quantity Discounts by Product when you want to assign discount tiers to a specific product.

Also note that if a customer purchases the same product, but selects different options (e.g. t-shirt ABC size XL and the same t-shirt, but size M), the products are treated independently by ProductCart, and therefore quantity discounts are not calculated on the total amount, but rather on the individual amounts ordered. For example, if quantity discounts started at 4 units of those t-shirts, a customer purchasing 2 medium and 2 small t-shirts (same product, different sizes) would not receive quantity discounts.
 
Quantity discounts at the category level

When you define quantity discounts at the category level the discounts apply to the total products purchased for any given category. Continuing on the examples mentioned above, if a customer purchased 10 different CD’s on a music store (one copy of each CD) and discounts were defined at the category level, with the first discount tier starting at 5 units (e.g. 10% off from 5 to 20 units), the customer would receive a discount both if he purchased 10 units of the same CD or 10 different CD’s. Therefore, use Quantity Discounts by Category when you want to assign discount tiers to orders that contain any combinations of products for the category to which you assign the discounts.

Also note that if a customer purchases the same product, but selecting different options (e.g. t-shirt ABC size XL and the same t-shirt, but size M), this time quantity discounts are calculated on the total amount of units purchased, since by definition they belong to the same category of products. For example, if quantity discounts started at 4 units of this t-shirt, a customer purchasing 2 medium and 2 small t-shirts (same product, different sizes) would enjoy quantity discounts on his order.
 
Feature Limitation: Pricing categories not supporte

You cannot define quantity discounts that are specific to a certain pricing category. You can only define discounts for retail and wholesale customers. Which discounts will be applied depends on whether that pricing category includes wholesale privileges or not.
 

Quantity Discounts by Product

 

This section focuses on Quantity Discounts by Product. The next section covers Quantity Discounts by Category. Many of the features work very similarly in both cases, and therefore will not be repeated in the second section.

When products are added to the shopping cart, the system checks to see if a discount has been associated with the selected quantity, and if so, applies it to the product. The same is true when the quantity is recalculated on the shopping cart page. 
 

Applying Quantity-Based Discounts


To apply quantity-based discounts to a product, take the following steps:
 

  1. Select Marketing > Manage Tiered Pricing from the navigation menu.
  2. Click on Quantity Discounts by Product.
  3. Locate the product for which you would like to apply quantity discounts. Products are sorted by name.
  4. Once you select the product, you will be taken to a page that shows whether a product already has quantity discounts associated with it or not. If so, it will show the message: “Discounts Applied”. If the product does not already have quantity discounts associated with it, it will look like the page below. Simply click on the Add button (plus sign) to the right.



From there, you will be take to the Modify Quantity Discounts page (shown below):



The quantity discount that will be applied to the product can be:
 
  • an absolute amount off the “on-line price” (e.g. $10 off the on-line price)
  • a percentage off the “on-line price” (e.g. 20% off the on-line price)

In addition, you can decide whether to include product options in the discount calculation or not. For example, assume that you are an art gallery that offers posters both framed and unframed. The option “Framed” may add a certain amount to the total price for the poster that the customer is ordering. You can decide whether to include that amount in the calculation or not.
 
  • If you do not want to include product options, then choose "Apply discount to base price only"
  • If you want to include product options, if any, in the calculation, then choose "Apply discount to base price + option prices"
How to Include Product Options in the Quantity Discount Calculation

Once you've determined whether or not to include product options in the calculation, take the following steps:
 
  • Enter the “from” and “to” quantity values for the first tier, specifying the discount value, both for retail and/or for wholesale customers. For example, your first “from” value could be 4, meaning that you start offering quantity discounts to your customers when they purchase 4 or more units of the selected product.
  • Next you can define subsequent tiers. Once you have added the first tier, ProductCart will switch to a new display that allows you to define additional “to” values for the additional tiers. You will not need to define a “from” value for those fields as ProductCart will automatically calculate the “from” value by adding 1 unit to the “to” value of the preceding field. Just make sure that the “to” value is greater than the preceding one by at least 2 units.
  • Click on the Edit link to switch to editing mode. All the discount fields will now be available for you to edit. Each quantity tier must be uniquely defined. Therefore, when you edit a discount tier, make sure the From field value is always greater than the To field value in the preceding discount tier.
  • When you are done editing the discount tiers, click on the Save button. If you make a mistake and assign values to the To and From fields that are in conflict with each other, ProductCart will not accept your entries. When you edit the From and To fields again, make sure they adhere to the rule mentioned above.
 
Removing Quantity Discounts and Repeating 

If you want to remove all quantity discounts from the selected product, click on Delete Discount.

Once you are done configuring quantity discounts for a certain product, you can easily assign the same discounts to multiple other products at once. For example, if all the different varieties of 2001 merlot on your wine store share the same discount structure, you can quickly assign the same quantity discounts to all of them at once.

What to do:
 
  • On the Modify Quantity Discounts page, click on the Apply to Other Products button at the bottom of the page. ProductCart will display the familiar, AJAX-driven product search page.
  • Locate the products that you would like to copy the discounts to. You can check products on different pages in the search results. Note that if any of the selected products already had quantity discounts assigned to them, they will be overwritten.
 
How quantity discounts are displayed


When quantity discounts apply to a product, they are displayed in many different pages in the storefront and throughout the checkout process, as described below:
  • See the link indicating that quantity discounts apply to a product is displayed on most of the browse and search pages (see example above). The link opens a pop-up window that lists all quantity tiers and the corresponding discounts. Retail customers will see retail discounts and wholesale customers will see wholesale discount values.
  • The product details page displays all discount tiers underneath the product image, organized in a table. See the Sample Product Display Page for a graphical example.
  • The shopping cart page lists the total discounts applied to the order and features a link to the same pop-up window mentioned above. If the quantity purchased is recalculated, the discounts are recalculated accordingly. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, quantity discounts may or may not include the price differential that is associated with one or both product options. In the example shown above, the quantity discount was 20% and included the option price in the calculation. Therefore, the total discounts of $187.20 for the 12 units purchased was calculated as follows: ($70 + $8) * 0.20 * 12.
  • Quantity discounts are similarly shown on the Order Verification page that is displayed to the customer during the checkout process, right before the payment selection page.
  • The Discount icon shown in the storefront can be edited using the Edit Store Icons feature. You can change the Quantity Discounts… text link by editing the file includes/languages.asp as described in Editing Text in Your Storefront. 
 
How prices are adjusted

Quantity discounts give you the ability to charge a lower price as the quantities go up, both with your retail and wholesale customers. The right price is automatically calculated when the product is added to the shopping cart. If a customer changes the quantity for the product and presses the Recalculate button, the correct price is once again located and used to calculate the total for the order.

Note that if your quantity tiers stop at a certain amount and a customer were to purchase an amount higher than the one specified for the last tier, no quantity discounts are given. Therefore, make sure your last tier includes an amount large enough to cover all orders.

Example - Dollar Amount
Let's assume that you have an on-line wine store and that you sell a certain bottle of wine for $20 (the on-line price). You may want to reward customers that buy the wine in large quantity. So you could set a dollar amount discount of $1 for people that buy from 5 to 10 bottles, $2 for customers that buy from 11 to 25 bottles, and so on. Let's also assume that your resellers buy the same wine at a wholesale price of $14 per bottle. You could give them a $0.50 discount if they buy from 5 to 10 bottles, $1.50 if they buy from 11 to 25 bottles, and so on.

Example - Percentage
Let's again assume that the on-line price for the same bottle of wine is $20. This time you could set the discount as a percentage of the on-line price. So you could set a 5% discount for people that buy from 5 to 10 bottles (which in this case translates to a discount of $1), 10% for customers that buy from 11 to 25 bottles (which in this case translates to a discount of $2), and so on. Note: Applying percentage discounts allows you to keep the discount proportionally consistent even if you change the on-line price. For example, if the price for that bottle of wine went down to $15, the discount for an order of 5 to 10 units would automatically go down to 5% * $15 = $0.75. On the contrary, the discount would remain $1 (which translated to a discount of 6.6%) had you set it up as a dollar amount.
 
Wholesale-only discounts

If you leave the “Retail” column at 0 and add discounts only in the Wholesale Price column, quantity discounts will not be shown and will not be applied when a retail customer is visiting the store. They will only be shown and applied when the customer is a wholesale customer.
 

Quantity Discounts by Category


Quantity discount by category allow you to apply discounts when multiple products from the same category are purchased (e.g. 5 music CD's, regardless of which CD's are purchased).
 
How to Set-up Quantity Discounts by Category
 
  • First, select the category to which you want to assign discounts. Select Marketing > Manage Tiered Pricing from the navigation menu and then click on Quantity Discounts by Category. A category search page will be displayed. ProductCart allows you to associate tiered prices with any category that contain products, except in the following two cases:
    • If a category does not contain products, it is not shown on the category selection page.
    • If a category contains products, but a Promotion  has been created for one or more of those products, a message will inform you that quantity discounts cannot be assigned to the category as they are incompatible with promotions.
  • Decide what type of discounts by category you want to offer. Just like with quantity discounts defined at the product level, you can charge your customers different prices for different quantity levels. The price can also vary depending on whether the buyer is a retail or wholesale customer. You can create unlimited quantity discount tiers for the products contained in the selected category.

    Since configuring quantity discounts by category is very similar to setting quantity discounts by product, for specific details about adding or editing discount tiers, please refer to the previous section.
     
  • To assign the same discounts to multiple other categories at once go to the Modify Quantity Discounts page and click on the Apply to Other Categories button at the bottom of the page. ProductCart will display a page that lists all categories that contain products and for which quantity discounts have not already been defined. Select the categories to which you would like to apply these quantity discounts, and then click on Add Discounts to Selected Categories.
 
Notes about quantity discounts by category
  • How they are shown in the storefront
    Unlike with quantity discounts defined at the product level, category-based quantity discounts are not shown in the storefront on the product details page, since the discounts are not specific to a certain product. They are, however, shown on the category page (the page that lists products included in a certain category).
  • How they are shown during checkout
    The shopping cart page lists the total category-based discounts applied to the order next to the order subtotal. If the quantity purchased is recalculated, the discounts are recalculated accordingly.
  • Products belonging to multiple categories
    If a product belongs to 2 or more categories AND category quantity discounts have been assigned to them, ONLY the category discounts that pertain to the first category (sorted by category ID) are applied to the shopping cart total when the product is added to the cart.