Set special Prices for specific customer segments

Key considerations for special pricing

When implementing special pricing for staff and friends, we must address several crucial questions:

• Visibility: should the discounted Prices be displayed in the product catalog or only in the Cart?
• Discount basis: how can we ensure the discount applies to the original Price and not to a discounted sale Price or to a store-specific Price? The discount should be calculated off the price lists.
• Shipping costs: how can we prevent the discount from being applied to shipping costs?

The following solutions are designed to be compatible with Solution B-2: Combining Price selection logic with Product Discounts discussed previously.

Solution 1: Product Discount

The first possible solution is based on using Product Discounts.

Implementation

1. Create a Customer Group and assign all "staff and friends" to it.
2. Create a Product Discount targeting ‘is one of’ the eight Price Channels and is the specific Customer Group with a 30% discount. This ensures compatibility with Solution B-2.

Remember that we have the following existing Price types from solution B-2:

• Channel List Price: Currency + Channel (least specific Price scope)
• Store-specific override: Currency + Channel (least specific Price scope)
• Global Promotion Price: Currency + Channel + Discount type (most specific)

The implementation discount criteria will not match the existing Price types, which is desirable. Next, we need to create the Price scope that the Product Discount is targeting, this will be done by integration. This Product Price scope should target Currency + Channel + customerGroup and will set the same values as the 8 price lists.

Let's look at an example of all our Composable Commerce Prices represented in a table, in order of least specific to most specific Price scope.

Rows 1 to 4 are existing Prices from Solution B-2. Rows 5 and 6 are examples of Original Price and Discounted Price for the "staff and friends" group. The Discounted Price comes from the Product Discount.

• Row 5 - 6: Is an example of the ‘staff and friends’ with Original Price and Discounted Price. The Discounted Price comes from the Product Discount

This will give us 1,104,000 new Price records. Our new total Price record is 7,755,600 (Existing Price records + 1,104,000 = 7,755,600). This is quite a low number and leaves this Project with lots of room to scale.

Functionality

• Product Search and Product Projection Search will return both the original and discounted Prices when the priceCustomerGroup parameter is set to the staff and friends Customer Group ID.
• Customers will see their discounted Price in the product catalog.
• The discounted Price will be automatically applied in the Cart if the Cart is assigned to the "staff and friends" Customer Group or a customer belonging to that group.

Line Item Distribution Channel

Customers who are not in the 'staff and friends' Customer Group will have the same logic we used in Solution B-2 applied for determining the correct Line Item Distribution Channel to be used on the Cart LineItemDraft.

The logic that we use to determine the correct LineItemDistributionChannel will be slightly different for Customers in the ‘staff and friends’ Customer Group.

Once we know each Channel type by Channel ID, we can tell which Channel to use as Distribution Channel on the lineItemDraft when adding each item to Cart. If the Customer belongs to the ‘staff and friends’ Customer group, then use the list-Channel for setLineItemDistributionChannel.

Strengths

• Compatible with Solution B-2.
• Customers see their discounted Price upfront in the product catalog and when items are added to Cart.
• Discount does not apply to other discounts or shipping discounts.
• Minimal increase in the number of Prices in the system.

Weaknesses

• Requires backend for frontend (BFF) logic to display both the original and discounted Prices based on Customer Group membership, therefore customers need to authenticate.
• May not be ideal if the business prefers to reveal the discount only at the Cart stage.

Solution 2: Cart Discount

The second possible solution is based on using Cart Discounts.

Implementation

1. Create a Customer Group and assign all "staff and friends" to it.
2. Create a Cart Discount targeting the eligibility criteria of all eight Price Channels and the specific Customer Group Key.
3. Configure the discount to apply automatically or via a coupon code.

Functionality

• The discount is applied only at the Cart stage, not visible in the product catalog.
• No additional Product Prices are introduced.

Line Item Distribution Channel

Follows the same logic as outlined in Solution 1 above.

Strengths

• Compatible with Solution B-2.
• No increase in Product Prices.
• Provides flexibility in applying the discount automatically or via a coupon code.

Weaknesses

• Staff and friends won't see their discounted Price until they add items to their Cart.

Summary

Both solutions offer viable approaches for implementing special pricing for staff and friends while maintaining compatibility with Solution B-2. The choice depends on whether the business prefers to display the discounted Price in the product catalog (Solution 1) or reveal it only at the Cart stage (Solution 2).

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