Pricing assets
A package of prices. Prices are not specific to any particular store. Each store can use Prices, and thus the store object is shown as dependent on the Prices package.Pricing represents the price for a catalog entry and any criteria that must be satisfied to use that price. To create a functional catalog, you need to add pricing information to the database. We can create pricing information in the format of XML files that can be loaded into the database by using the loading utilities.
The following diagram illustrates the pricing assets in the Transaction Server.
- Offer
- Offer price
- Trading position container
- Terms and conditions
- Types of pricing terms and conditions
- Customized price list
- Entire catalog with adjustment
- Price list with adjustment
- Price list with selective adjustment
- Catalog with filtering
- Dynamic kit component pricing
Trading agreement- Participant
- Participant role
- Creator
- Seller
- Buyer
- Supplier
- Approver
- Account holder
- Buyer contact
- Seller contact
- Attorney
- Administrator.
- Contract
- Business policy
- Price policy
- Catalog entry shipping
- Other pricing assets
- Member
- Store
- Store entity
- Catalog
- Catalog group
- Catalog entry
- Offers, or pricing, are different prices for the same product or item to
different customers or organizations. An offer represents the price of a catalog entry and criteria.
For example, the quantity to be purchased, that the customer must satisfy to pay that price. For
example, merchandise or services are often priced differently for children, students, adults, and
seniors. In WebSphere Commerce, an offer is also known as a trading position and is part of a
trading position container.
- The offer price is a price at which catalog entries are offered by a store
with trading agreements or contracts. An offer can have one or more than one offer prices that are defined in multiple currencies.
- An offer is part of a trading position container, which is owned by a member.
A trading position container contains trading positions. The position container can be made
available to all customers, or to only customers in certain groups. To make the container available
to customers use the trading agreements or contracts, and the terms and conditions in the contracts.
Under a contract, a trading position container is a price business object that can be referenced by
multiple price business policies. The container, as a price business object, can be shared by a
store or all stores in a store group. A trading position container is also referred to as a
price list. In some business models, we can have multiple standard price lists,
which could be based on either cost, or on list prices.
- Terms and conditions define the behavior and properties of a trading agreement.
Many terms and conditions reference business policies because several aspects of a store operation
are defined by business policies.
Pricing terms and conditions define what products are available under a contract
and what prices the customer pays for the products. At least one of the following pricing terms is
required in a contract: The following pricing terms and conditions are available in WebSphere Commerce:
- This term specifies that both the list of products for sale and their prices are customized for
sale in a contract and their price is customized. Items are not limited to a section of the store
catalog, they can be from anywhere in the store catalog.
- This term and condition is deprecated; instead use the Catalog with filtering term.
- This term offers all of the products available in a price list for sale with a percentage
adjustment (mark-up or discount) from the base price as defined in the store catalog. If no
adjustment is specified, items are sold at the base price.
- This term is similar to price list with adjustment except the adjustment is not applied to the entire price list. The adjustment is made on a subset of the price list. The subset of the price
list can either be a product set business policy or a customized product set.
- This term offers all of the products available in a store catalog for sale with a percentage
adjustment (mark-up or discount) from the base price as defined in the store catalog. This term also
offers all of the products available in a category, or a list of specify products and items, for
sale with a percentage adjustment (mark-up or discount) from the base price as defined in the price
list that is referenced by this term. This term can also state which categories, products, and items
are for sale or are not for sale in a contract. Category product sets behave as a product set
business policy. Item product sets are customized products sets.
- This term offers a dynamic kit for sale and specifies the adjusted prices of components within
the dynamic kit. The adjustment can be specified as a percentage adjustment (mark-up or discount) or
as a fixed price. The price of the dynamic kit is the sum of the adjusted component prices.
A trading agreement can be a contract, an RFQ, a business account, or an
auction. A trading agreement is an agreement that is negotiated between a seller and a buyer. In the agreement the buyer is enabled to purchase certain items with the specified terms and conditions and
the business policies stipulated in the contract. For example, it allows the customer to purchase
products from a store at the specified price for a specified time under the pricing terms and
conditions. In WebSphere Commerce, all customers must shop in a store under a contract. A store
can deploy one or more contracts and one of them can be designated to be the default contract. A
default contract contains a set of terms and conditions associated with a set of store
default policies. A trading agreement can contain zero or more participants of different roles.
- A participant can be part of either a trading agreement or terms and
conditions. A participant is a member which can be a member group, an organization, or an
individual. If a buyer role participant is specified for a contract, a buyer must be a member of the buyer participant to shop under the contract. The terms and conditions in the contract can also
contain zero or multiple participants.
A participant can have one of the following participant roles:
- A contract contains the offer price for the product. In WebSphere Commerce, all customers must shop under a contract. A contract allows the customer to purchase products
from a store at the specified price for a specified time, under the terms and conditions, and
business policies, stipulated in the contract. A store owns zero or more contracts, and owns at
least one default contract.
- Business policies are sets of rules followed by a store or store group that define business processes, industry practices, and the scope and characteristics of a store or store
groups offerings. Business policies are enforced with a combination of one or more business policy
commands. These commands implement the rules of the business policy, a reference to a business
object that the rules act on, and a set of properties to configure the operation of the business
policy commands.
- A price policy contains a reference to a price list and can be associated
with multiple business policy commands that define how the business policies are implemented on the price lists. The policy can be defined for a store or a store group. If the policy is registered for
a store group, then the policy can be used by all stores in that group.
- Catalog entry shipping information includes information about how the product is
packaged for shipping. Each catalog entry can have different types of shipping information defined.
For example, the height, weight, and length of the product when packaged.
The following assets are associated with pricing:
- A member who owns the trading position container. A trading position
container has only one owner.
A store is a store entity. A store must belong to a store group.
- A store entity represents a store in the Transaction Server
database.
- A catalog contains catalog entries that are referenced in a contract. The
catalog contains all hierarchical and navigational information for the online catalog. The catalog
is a collection of catalog groups and catalog entries that are available for display and purchase at
an online store.
- A catalog group, or category, are generic groupings of catalog entries, which
are created for navigational, and catalog partitioning purposes. A catalog group belongs to a
catalog and can contain more than one catalog group or catalog entries. We can associate catalog
groups to more than one catalog.
- A catalog entry represents merchandise that can be ordered in an online
catalog. Catalog entries belong to catalog groups. An offer is always associated with one catalog
entry.
Related concepts
Store data information model