Negotiated pricing

Customer service representatives (CSRs) can negotiate product prices with customers, if necessary, to complete a transaction. CSRs override product prices by specifying the price agreed upon by both the customer and the CSR.

Each CSR group has an authorized range, defined by the quoted price as the upper bound, and a group-specific floor price. The quoted price is the initial price offered to the customer. The floor price for a CSR group is determined by the administrator, and is a percentage markup from the product's nominal cost. A nominal cost is a monetary amount which represents the cost of a single unit of that catalog entry. There is at most one nominal cost for each catalog entry in a catalog. The collection of nominal costs are stored in a nominal cost price list. The nominal cost list, created and maintained by a store developer, is stored in WebSphere Commerce as if it were a standard price list, but it is only accessible in it's distinct role as the basis for price override limits.

To illustrate, consider the following simple example:

A hardware store sells claw hammers and ball peen hammers. Assume that claw hammers have a nominal cost of $8, and ball peen hammers have a nominal cost of $10. These hammers sell for $15 and $20 respectively. Also, CSR group A has a floor price defined as the Nominal Price + 25%, and CSR group B has a floor price of Nominal Price + 50%. In this case, the following table captures the relevant data:

Product Claw hammer Ball peen hammer
Nominal cost $8 $10
CSR group A floor price $10 $12.50
CSR group B floor price $12 $15
Default offer price $15 $20

This table shows that a CSR in CSR group A can negotiate a price for a claw hammer between $10-15, while a CSR in group B can negotiate a price between $12-15. Typically, this arrangement reflects an arrangement in which CSR group A may be reserved for CSRs with greater seniority, or they are associated with a particular high priority client, and require additional leeway in negotiations.

If a CSR tries to offer a price that exceeds their group limit, the system blocks the order, and sends notification to the appropriate person for approval.

Negotiated prices are only applicable to the current order. Repeat customers do not automatically receive the discounted price, and if an order is copied to create a new order, the negotiated price is not copied at the same time, though it could be re-applied.

In a hosted store environment, the user interface displays all of the price-override limits that belong to the owner of the hosted store. If the store owner owns multiple hosted stores, all of the price-override limits created in all of the stores will display in the Price-Override Limits page. However, only those price-override limits associated with the current store can be deployed. The price-override limits which have been deployed in the other hosted stores have a status of Active, but are marked to indicate that they are active in a different store.

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