(Enterprise)

Range pricing in price lists

Range pricing is typically used to offer customers a lower price per catalog entry if they purchase a larger quantity of the catalog entry. To specify range pricing, a price list must contain multiple entries for each catalog entry. For each entry, we must specify a minimum quantity and an associated price. The following is an example of a price list viewed in Management Center containing range pricing for the T-Handle Bolt catalog entry:

In this example:


Considerations when using multiple price lists with different ranges on the same price rule path

If you use range pricing in your price lists, the ranges are displayed on the product details pages of the store:

To avoid unexpected results on the product display page, we might need to build your price rule in a certain way if all of the following are true:

If so, when a customer views a product display page, only the ranges from the first price list on the price rule path are displayed. Therefore, when you build a price rule, make sure that the price list containing the ranges you prefer to display comes first on the path.


Example

To calculate the offer price for the T-Handle Bolt, you have a price rule that adds Price List A (Costs) and Price List B (Surcharge) together using two separate actions on the same price rule path:

Price List A contains the following ranges for the T-Handle Bolt (ranges are defined in the Minimum Quantity column):

Name Minimum Quantity USD
T-Handle Bolt 1 $7.00
T-Handle Bolt 11 $6.00
T-Handle Bolt 21 $5.00

Price List B contains the following different ranges for the T-Handle Bolt:

Name Minimum Quantity USD
T-Handle Bolt 1 $3.00
T-Handle Bolt 6 $2.00
T-Handle Bolt 16 $1.00

To accurately represent the price ranges on the product display page after adding these two price lists together, WebSphere Commerce would have to display five ranges rather than only three, to account for the overlapping ranges, as shown here:

Theoretical ranges
Quantity Price
1-5 $10.00
6-10 $9.00
11-15 $8.00
16-20 $7.00
21 or more $6.00

Instead, WebSphere Commerce displays only the ranges from the first price list in the price rule. For this example, the product display page shows only the three ranges from Price List A:

Actual ranges displayed on the product display page
Quantity Price
1-10 $10.00
11-20 $8.00
21 or more $6.00

The only impact is that the customer cannot see that there are additional price discounts for certain quantities that are in between the displayed ranges. For example if customers purchase 16 packages of bolts instead of 15, they pay $7.00 per package instead of $8.00; however, the actual ranges displayed do not indicate this.

When the customer checks out, the price rule always gives the customer the correct price according to the ranges in both price lists. In other words, if the customer purchases 16 packages of bolts, they are changed $7.00 per package.

If you require all ranges to be shown on the storefront, then make sure all the price lists used on the same path in a price rule use the same ranges.

Note: There is one circumstance in which range pricing does not come from the first price list on the price rule path. Consider the following example price rule, which is not logical:

In this price rule, the first Get Price from Price List action is ignored. This is because the second Get Price from Price List action also specifies a price list to use, and there is no dependent relationship between the two actions. Building a price rule like this does not makes sense; however, in a case like this, the range pricing will come from the second price rule, since the first one is ignored.


Advanced range pricing

We can create offers with duplicate or overlapping quantity ranges for the same product. The duplicate or overlapping ranges can have different price amounts, start dates, end dates, or precedences. The fields can be found in the OFFER database table. There is also extra filtering that is applied in Management Center. The applicable offer prices are displayed with the start date and end date in the current system time. This display gives you more flexibility in maintaining your offer prices. The flexibility is helpful especially when loading offers into a data loading utility. During the shopping flow, if the shopper buys a product at a quantity where multiple eligible offer prices are applicable for the quantity, the offer with the highest precedence wins. If there are multiple offers with the highest precedence, the lowest price wins. However, avoid creating offer prices with duplicate or overlapping quantity ranges in Management Center, because some properties are not exposed in the Catalog Filter and Pricing tool. In Management Center, in both the Catalogs tool and the Catalog Filter and Pricing tool, we can edit and maintain offer prices. In the Pricing section of the Catalog Entry properties view in the Catalogs tool or in the Price List management view in the Catalog Filter and Pricing tool, we must explicitly specify the maximum quantity. Both the minimum and maximum quantity must be a positive integer number. The maximum quantity is inclusive. For example, if the maximum quantity of an offer price is 8, the offer price is applicable when shoppers buy the product at quantity 8. When the maximum quantity is left blank, it means that it is an indefinite number. To create offer prices, we must input these values:

Minimum Quantity Maximum Quantity USD
1 99 599
100 499

If the quantity range of a product does not fully cover the range offer of one to an indefinite number, the range is shown in the store front. For example, the offer prices in the table that is shown here are defined on a product.

Minimum quantity Maximum quantity USD
1 99 599
200 499

For example, the range prices for the product show on store front:

The price for quantity 100 - 199 is missing. When shoppers try to buy the product for the quantity 100 - 199, they encounter an error and cannot complete the purchase. Due to this error, it is preferable that you avoid defining incomplete pricing.