Explore Discount Types and Promotion Controls

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• 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 promotion processing.
  

You just created the qualifiers for the Spring campaign. Now, it’s time to create promotions. Before you start, take a few minutes and learn more about B2C Commerce promotions 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 you use to 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 each promotion you create, ask yourself:

1. Who gets the deal? (Loyalty Program members)
   
2. What’s the discount? (20% off)
   
3. How do shoppers get the deal? (Buy Brand-X SuperSpeed running shoes)
   
4. Are there exclusions? (No)
   

For example, if you 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.

You answer these questions for all your promotions. For the Spring campaign, you answered the first question by creating qualifiers in the previous unit. Now, move on to explore discount types and the many ways you can control how shoppers get the deals.

Discount Types

You further define each of the three promotion types by discount type and available discounts.

Here’s a sampling of them.

See Campaigns and Promotions 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 that you create.

Before you create the promotions, learn more about how to control them.

Control Those Promotions

To promote products, you offer great discounts, but within reason. You don’t want a shopper to qualify for multiple discounts and get products for free.

Here are the ways that you can control who gets a discount.

• Tiered discounts
  
• Compatibility rules
  
• Maximum application
  
• Qualifiers
  
• Globally excluded products
  
• Qualifying and discounted products
  

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 buy a certain brand and spend a certain amount to qualify. The more they spend, the bigger the discount.

Compatibility Rules

You use compatibility rules, exclusivity and rank, to configure which discounts apply and in what order.

Exclusivity

With the exclusivity setting, you can define if promotion types are mutually exclusive or relative to another promotion type. Here are the settings.

For example, if all shoppers get 10% off and registered shoppers get 20% off, the registered shoppers get a 20% discount. However, you can give shoppers a 10% product discount, free shipping based on the order value, and a free bonus product in the same order. For the Spring campaign, set exclusivity to Cannot be combined with a promotion of the same class.

Rank

Another option for controlling promotion compatibility is by using the rank setting. The rank system applies promotions in the order of their rank (highest to lowest). Ranks range from 10, the highest rank, to 100, the lowest rank. Use rank to define which promotions take precedence. For example, a promotion with a rank = 10 (highest) takes precedence over a promotion with a rank of 100 = lowest. Use the Business Manager promotion editing page to set the (optional) rank of a promotion. By default, a promotion has no rank.

Maximum Application

You control how many times a shopper can use a specific promotion in a single order. For example, you offer a bonus baseball with a purchase of a pair of Brand-X baseball shoes. You 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. This approach helps prevent discounts on low margin products, for example, without configuring 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, this discount.

Buy a Brand-Y T-shirt and get half off the matching shorts.

A shopper qualifies for the promotion by buying the T-shirt, while discounting the shorts.

Which Discounts Apply?

To apply discounts strategically, it’s important 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 the discount to apply. You can customize some of the rules, such as exclusivity and rank, but most of them have fixed rules. For example, B2C Commerce processes product, order, and shipping promotions in an exact order based on cart calculations. Here’s how B2C Commerce discounts by class.

• Calculate product promotions.
  
• Calculate order promotions based on 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.

1. External API-generated promotions
   
2. Class (product, order, shipping)
   
3. Exclusivity (customizable)
   
4. Rank (customizable)
   
5. Discount type and value (Gives precedence to promotions that provide the best value to the shopper.)
   

1. Fixed price
   
2. Total fixed price
   
3. Free
   
4. Price book price
   
5. Amount-off
   
6. Percent-off
   
7. Bonus-product
   
8. Choice of bonus products
   
9. Free product-shipping
   
10. Fixed price product-shipping
    

6. Maximum application
   

Promotion processing is complex, but it happens fast. As shoppers add items to the cart, the numbers change in a flash.

Next Steps

In this unit, you learned about B2C Commerce promotions including discount types and available discounts. You also learned how to apply and control discounts. Next, learn to create promotions.

Resources

• Help: Campaigns and Promotions
• Help: Promotion Processing
• Help: Analytics and Reporting for Promotions
• Help: Customize Promotions