Explore Discount Types and Promotion Controls
Learning Objectives
- List three discount types.
- Explain where you can go to learn about discount types and available discounts.
- List three ways you can control who gets the deal.
- Explain the compatibility rules.
- List three steps in the order of promotion processing.
Introduction
Brandon Wilson, the Cloud Kicks merchandiser, has his qualifiers and now wants to create promotions. But before he begins, he wants to learn more about what Salesforce B2C Commerce promotions are and how they work.
B2C Commerce promotions specify discounts or offers. They run within a campaign or an A/B test. A/B test is a B2C Commerce feature that lets you test multiple experiences against each other to see how shoppers respond.
Promotion configurations contain rules that define the promotion type, conditions, and discounts. You can extend a promotion with custom attributes to meet specific business requirements. Promotions can be time-sensitive and targeted at specific customer groups. They can be perpetual, such as offering free shipping to build shopper loyalty. You can assign the same promotion to multiple campaigns.
For example, Brandon wants to offer 20% off Brand-X SuperSpeed running shoes to Loyalty Program members. Shoppers qualify for this discount by entering a coupon code after they log in to the storefront.
For each promotion Brandon wants to create, he asks himself:
- Who gets the deal? (Loyalty Program members)
- What’s the discount? (20% off)
- How do shoppers get the deal? (Buy Brand-X SuperSpeed running shoes)
- Are there exclusions? (No)
He needs to answer these questions for all his promotions. He already answered the first question by creating qualifiers in the previous unit. Let’s move on to explore discount types and the many ways he can control how shoppers get the deals.
Discount Types
Each of the three promotion types is further defined by discount type and available discounts.
Here’s a sampling of them.
| Discount Type | Discounts | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Buy X for Total | The shopper must purchase a minimum number of qualifying products for a total fixed price for those items. For example, buy three discounted products for $30. | Buy n for total price of Y |
| Buy X/Get Y | The shopper must purchase a minimum number of qualifying products to qualify for the discount on a specified number of extra products. For example, the customer must buy 2 pairs of jeans to get a third pair at 50% off. |
|
| Without qualifying products | The shopper doesn't have to purchase a qualifying product to qualify for the discount. For example, buy a brand-A T-shirt, get 10% off the price of the T-shirt. |
|
See Campaigns and Promotions in the Infocenter for a complete list.
Some of the discount types, such as choice of bonus products, require more code in the storefront application.
Here are the promotions he wants to create.
| Class | Description | Qualifier |
|---|---|---|
| Product |
|
Coupon and customer group for Loyalty Program member |
| Order | 15% off orders over $50 | Coupon from an email campaign |
| Shipping | Free shipping on orders over $100 | Source code for visitors who click a specific newsletter email |
Before Brandon creates the promotions, he wants to learn more about how to control them.
Control Those Promotions
Brandon wants to offer great discounts, but within reason. He doesn’t want a shopper to qualify for multiple discounts and get products for free. Even double-dipping is not OK. That’s when a shopper gets a double discount.
Here are the ways he can control who gets a discount.
- Tiered discounts
- Compatibility rules
- Maximum application
- Qualifiers
- Globally excluded products
- Qualifying and discounted products
Let’s take a closer look.
Tiered Discounts
With tiered discounts, the discount amount increases as the shopper buys more products or spends more money. For example, a shopper gets 10% off a $50 purchase of Brand-X apparel, 15% on $100, and 20% on $150 or more. They must buy a certain brand and spend a certain amount to qualify. The more they spend, the bigger the discount.
Compatibility Rules
Compatibility rules let you configure which discounts apply and in what order, so that all promotions for which a shopper is eligible are not automatically applied. Exclusivity and rank settings let you do this.
With the exclusivity setting, Brandon can define if promotion types are mutually exclusive or relative to another promotion type. Here are the settings.
| Exclusivity | Definition |
|---|---|
| NO | Can be combined with any promotion (default). |
| CLASS | Cannot be combined with a promotion of the same class. |
| GLOBAL | Cannot be combined with any promotion. |
For example, if all shoppers get 10% off and registered shoppers get 20% off, the registered shoppers should only get a 20% discount. Brandon might, however, want shoppers to get a 10% product discount, free shipping based on the order value, and a free bonus product in the same order. In this case, exclusivity should be set to Cannot be combined with a promotion of the same class.
The rank setting lets Brandon decide which promotions come first (10 is highest and 100 is lowest, for example). Promotions are applied in the order of their rank (highest rank first).
Maximum Application
You can control how many times a shopper can use a specific promotion in a single order. For example, Brandon wants to offer a bonus baseball with a purchase of a pair of Brand-X baseball shoes. He can limit the number of baseballs that a shopper receives in an order, regardless of how many pairs of shoes they buy in that order.
Globally Excluded Products
You can exclude certain products from a promotion within each promotion individually. You can also exclude specific products from all promotions globally. Brandon can prevent discounts on low margin products, for example, without having to configure a setting for each promotion.
Qualifying and Discounted Products
You can configure a specific set of products that qualify for a promotion and the same or a different set of products that qualify for a discount. For example, Brandon is considering this discount.
Buy a buy Brand-Y T-shirt and get half off the matching shorts.
A shopper qualifies for the promotion by buying the T-shirt, while the shorts are discounted.
Which Discounts Apply?
Brandon wants to understand how discounts are prioritized when a shopper qualifies for more than one of them at checkout. If only one discount can apply, how does B2C Commerce figure out which one it is?
B2C Commerce uses priority rules to determine this. You can customize some of the rules, such as exclusivity and rank, but most of them are fixed. For example, B2C Commerce processes product, order, and shipping promotions in an exact order based on cart calculations. Here are the steps B2C Commerce takes to process discounts by class.
- Calculate product promotions.
- Calculate order promotions on the basis of the merchandise total.
- Prorate order-level discounts across all products within the order.
- Calculate shipping promotions.
Promotion class is only one of the many promotion calculations. When multiple promotions apply, B2C Commerce processes promotions in this order.
- External API-generated promotions
- Class (product, order, shipping)
- Exclusivity (customizable)
- Rank (customizable)
- Discount type and value (Promotions that provide the best value to the shoppers are evaluated first.)
- Fixed price
- Total fixed price
- Free
- Price book price
- Amount-off
- Percent-off
- Bonus-product
- Choice of bonus products
- Free product-shipping
- Fixed price product-shipping
- Maximum application
Promotion processing is complex, but it happens fast. As shoppers add items to the cart, the numbers change in a flash.
