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Promotion codes
Promotion codes are frequently used to encode identification information. You can assign promotion codes to the promotions.
Promotion codes contain any of the following information:
- Channel through which this promotion is advertised
- Time of advertisement
- Country or region in which the promotion is advertised
- Target segment of the advertisement
- Catalog version on which this promotion is based
- Additional pricing information
- Additional fulfillment information
In practice, the information encoded into the promotion code is limited only by the requirements. In some cases, you might have multiple promotion codes assigned to the same promotion, which all share the same identification information, but which differ in the additional encoded information. Given the definition of a promotion, a list of promotion codes needs to be generated and assigned to the promotion. Later these codes need to be resolved to identify the same promotion.
Promotions without a promotion code can only be applied automatically as part of promotion evaluation. Promotions for which a promotion code has been defined can only be applied when the promotion code is entered. When a promotion code is entered for a promotion, it indicates that the customer is explicitly requesting this promotion. Therefore this promotion will take precedence over any promotions for which no promotion code is entered. IBM recommends that you require promotion codes for the promotions. This is especially important for performance reasons when a system has a large number of active promotions.
When the customer redeems the promotion by entering the promotion code, the system validates that they are the legal bearer of that promotion code by evaluating whether the customer is within the targeted customer segment. However, it is possible that the customer's circumstance can change between the time the promotion code is issued to the customer and the time the promotion is redeemed. Such change can result in the customer no longer belonging to that target customer segment, and no longer qualifying for the promotion.
It is important to understand that the business user must enter unique promotion codes when creating promotions. If duplicate promotion codes are used for two or more promotions, the WebSphere Commerce Server will have no method by which to determine which promotion should be applied. A promotion will be randomly chosen to be applied to the purchase.
Note that despite support for promotion codes, WebSphere Commerce provides only a simple promotion code solution. If you require a more complex solution and want to integrate a custom promotion code application, refer to Configure the promotion engine for a custom promotion code manager.
Related concepts
Related tasks
Activating or deactivating a promotion